Lara Stone Narrates Life As A Curvy Model
posted by Maggie's Nest at
12/21/2009 | 1 Comments 
Curvy and proud size 4, supermodel Lara Stone talks about her early hardships in the modeling industry in latest Vogue interview.
When you're a model, nobody calls you fat. "What they say is 'curvy' but you know they mean fat," says Dutch supermodel Lara Stone who stands 5'10" and wears a size 4. And the fat label could only get worse. When the stylists started whispering in a corner after trying on clothes for ten minutes, "that is when I know I'm about to be canceled."
Like most fashion models, Lara Stone was scouted in her teens. Back then, she was a "typical angry teenager" with no interest other than cigarettes and dressing up for the Halloween. During one of her family's trip to Paris, she was scouted by an agent in the Métro. She spent a few years in Paris living the typical life of a struggling model — sharing an apartment with five other girls, went on endless casting calls ("Walk. Turn. Walk. Thank you"), and posed for catalog shoots that "paid well but not spectacularly."
By the age of 22, Lara Stone met Derek Dayley, a young agent at IMG who was intrigued by her unconventional looks. "She had been pigeonholed as this pretty, fresh-faced blonde, but I saw something else. She's got this interesting, one-of-a-kind beauty," the agent would later reveal.
The big model agency has helped paved the way for Lara Stone's career. She soon appeared in ad campaigns for Givenchy, Calvin Klein, and Hugo Boss. She also walked the runway for almost every major designer including Marc Jacobs, Balmain, and Isabel Marant.
Despite the success, it is still not easy for a young girl to constantly feel being the different one. And for a size 4 model in the land of size zeros, famous Lara Stone is always considered as the odd one.
"It's depressing when the clothes don't fit and you are always the odd one out... I was on a shoot just last week. And the stylist took out this tight corset dress and said, 'Here, put it on,' and I was like, 'Who are you kidding?' There was no way, so that was very rude of her. It's like, come on, she's a woman; whether you're buying jeans at the mall or wearing couture, you know what it's like for clothes not to fit. It's not an easy kind of rejection, because it's very personal. It's you, your body. You take it to heart."
Despite the "curvy" praises, Lara Stone soon began to feel the pressure of losing weight. She went on diet and exercise, but nothing worked. She even tried pills but stopped because it made her heart race. Eventually, she started drinking alcohol to get through the day.
Still, nobody seemed to notice ("In this job, you're always in different countries with different people.") and soon, Lara Stone's alcohol problems got worse. "I was waking up shaking. I couldn't do anything until I had a drink. I hated it. I didn't like the person I became. Plus, I was looking like absolute shit, waking up with a swollen red face, pimples everywhere," she recalled.
Admitting to herself that she really had a problem, she voluntarily checked into a month-long alcohol rehabilitation program in South Africa. "I thought it would be like a holiday, but it turned out I was in lockdown for 23 hours. It was really not a holiday. It was a lot of therapy, a lot of crying, and a lot of difficult moments," she said.
But the therapy was also successful. She has not had a drink for eight months. And months later, Lara Stone was back on on the scene, an unlikely but rising supermodel strutting her curves and even winning the hearts of fashion critics.
As they say, clothes hang better on a coat hanger but some clothes look better on bodies with "boobs."
Karl Lagerfeld, a fan of the model's fuller figure, says "Lara Stone has a gorgeous woman's body."
Virginia Smith, the fashion market editor of Vogue, says "Lara makes clothes look good. It's refreshing to see her come down the runway. Sometimes I'll call in a piece, it will arrive, and I'll think, Why did I think I liked that? Then I'll remember, Oh, because Lara wore it."
Renowned fashion photographer Mario Testino says "I have never thought of Lara as fat. It is just a matter of different shapes. It reminds me of when I started to work with Gisele; everyone used to think that she was too voluptuous. Look at where she is now!"
Lara Stone, indeed, is in every inch a supermodel at the peak of her career — despite that her size remains an issue.
As for her personal issues, the curvy supermodel just says "I like my job. I don't want to do anything else... People think I'm angry because of my face, or that I'm a sex bomb. I'm neither... People still tell me I'm fat, but when I look in the mirror, that's not what I see."
When you're a model, nobody calls you fat. "What they say is 'curvy' but you know they mean fat," says Dutch supermodel Lara Stone who stands 5'10" and wears a size 4. And the fat label could only get worse. When the stylists started whispering in a corner after trying on clothes for ten minutes, "that is when I know I'm about to be canceled."
Like most fashion models, Lara Stone was scouted in her teens. Back then, she was a "typical angry teenager" with no interest other than cigarettes and dressing up for the Halloween. During one of her family's trip to Paris, she was scouted by an agent in the Métro. She spent a few years in Paris living the typical life of a struggling model — sharing an apartment with five other girls, went on endless casting calls ("Walk. Turn. Walk. Thank you"), and posed for catalog shoots that "paid well but not spectacularly."
By the age of 22, Lara Stone met Derek Dayley, a young agent at IMG who was intrigued by her unconventional looks. "She had been pigeonholed as this pretty, fresh-faced blonde, but I saw something else. She's got this interesting, one-of-a-kind beauty," the agent would later reveal.
The big model agency has helped paved the way for Lara Stone's career. She soon appeared in ad campaigns for Givenchy, Calvin Klein, and Hugo Boss. She also walked the runway for almost every major designer including Marc Jacobs, Balmain, and Isabel Marant.
Despite the success, it is still not easy for a young girl to constantly feel being the different one. And for a size 4 model in the land of size zeros, famous Lara Stone is always considered as the odd one.
"It's depressing when the clothes don't fit and you are always the odd one out... I was on a shoot just last week. And the stylist took out this tight corset dress and said, 'Here, put it on,' and I was like, 'Who are you kidding?' There was no way, so that was very rude of her. It's like, come on, she's a woman; whether you're buying jeans at the mall or wearing couture, you know what it's like for clothes not to fit. It's not an easy kind of rejection, because it's very personal. It's you, your body. You take it to heart."
Despite the "curvy" praises, Lara Stone soon began to feel the pressure of losing weight. She went on diet and exercise, but nothing worked. She even tried pills but stopped because it made her heart race. Eventually, she started drinking alcohol to get through the day.
Still, nobody seemed to notice ("In this job, you're always in different countries with different people.") and soon, Lara Stone's alcohol problems got worse. "I was waking up shaking. I couldn't do anything until I had a drink. I hated it. I didn't like the person I became. Plus, I was looking like absolute shit, waking up with a swollen red face, pimples everywhere," she recalled.
Admitting to herself that she really had a problem, she voluntarily checked into a month-long alcohol rehabilitation program in South Africa. "I thought it would be like a holiday, but it turned out I was in lockdown for 23 hours. It was really not a holiday. It was a lot of therapy, a lot of crying, and a lot of difficult moments," she said.
But the therapy was also successful. She has not had a drink for eight months. And months later, Lara Stone was back on on the scene, an unlikely but rising supermodel strutting her curves and even winning the hearts of fashion critics.
As they say, clothes hang better on a coat hanger but some clothes look better on bodies with "boobs."
Karl Lagerfeld, a fan of the model's fuller figure, says "Lara Stone has a gorgeous woman's body."
Virginia Smith, the fashion market editor of Vogue, says "Lara makes clothes look good. It's refreshing to see her come down the runway. Sometimes I'll call in a piece, it will arrive, and I'll think, Why did I think I liked that? Then I'll remember, Oh, because Lara wore it."
Renowned fashion photographer Mario Testino says "I have never thought of Lara as fat. It is just a matter of different shapes. It reminds me of when I started to work with Gisele; everyone used to think that she was too voluptuous. Look at where she is now!"
Lara Stone, indeed, is in every inch a supermodel at the peak of her career — despite that her size remains an issue.
As for her personal issues, the curvy supermodel just says "I like my job. I don't want to do anything else... People think I'm angry because of my face, or that I'm a sex bomb. I'm neither... People still tell me I'm fat, but when I look in the mirror, that's not what I see."
Labels: A Model's Life, busty models, catwalk models, Lara Stone, plus size models, supermodels
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