Kate Moss Goes Curvy: Will Other Models Follow?

March 3, 2009— -- Kate Moss has curves.

The model who pioneered "heroin chic" and has always been a mere sliver of a person made headlines last month when she posed for New York magazine and showed off a new curvier body. Immediately, she was forced to dispel rumors that she was pregnant.

"I'm a woman now," she told the magazine. "I've never worn a bra in my life. Ever! It's so awful, even my friends are phoning me up and saying 'are you pregnant?' And I'm like, 'no! I just put on a couple of pounds, and they went in the right place.' Isn't that weird?"

Weird as it may be, the timing is apparently good for Moss, 35, who is about to expand her successful clothing line TopShop to include lingerie and who coincidentally started wearing a bra herself.

The timing could also be good for an industry that's long been criticized for using stick-thin figures on the runways and in magazines.

Trendsetter that she is, the new curvier Moss, who helped usher in the most recent era of super-skinny models, could be signaling a sea change in the industry back to healthier-looking models.

"To some extent, as goes Kate, so goes fashion," said Kohle Yohannan, a cultural historian and co-curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit "The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion," which will feature Moss. "As Kate Moss approaches the age and body type of a more viable couture customer, her credibility as a model only rises."

Not so fast, says Kelly Cutrone, founder of fashion public relations firm People's Revolution and a regular on MTV's "The Hills" and "The City."

"She's curvy for Kate, not curvy for us," Cutrone told ABCNews.com. "She might be a [size] 4, as opposed to a 0. That's different from curvy for any Kate. I don't think she's going to be the girl to bring curvy in, in a big way. I don't think she's a plus-size model waiting to happen.

"This is very unlike her," Cutrone said. "I think maybe something else is going on. She's in love, maybe she's pregnant. I'm still not so sure she's not pregnant."

Neal Hamil, director of Elite Models, also believes Moss's curves are just temporary.

"Her being a little heavier, curvier rather, that could be gone in three weeks," Hamil told ABCNews.com.