Life as a Plus-size model

Bruce Ndlovu
WHEN one pictures a model, they usually envision a tall and pencil slim beauty stylishly strutting up and down the runway.

Although women in the world come in all shapes and sizes, this is the image that has been cultivated across many beauty pageants and runway shows, with the result being that the slender built beauty is viewed across the globe as the ideal body type for the runway.

However, over the past few years, perceptions have begun to shift.

As people from around the world start to throw off long held standards of what beauty should be, the world of modelling is also tossing away some of the perceptions that denied certain kinds of women from basking in the glitz and glamour of the runway.

From village square where life moves at a snail pace to the fast-paced lifestyle on an ordinary African street, voluptuous, curvy women, are in abundance. Rather than settling for the card they were dealt and confining themselves to whatever corner of the continent they were born in, these women, like their slimmer counterparts, are also looking to take the world of modelling by storm.

One of these women is 31-year-old Stacey NJ, a Bulawayo-born, South Africa-based blogger turned model that discovered her calling in 2015.

“There will always be people who dona��t like you or what you do, but you have to believe in yourself”[/caption]

a�?I was inspired by Naomi Campbell because she doesna��t age. Denise Bidot and Ashley Graham are my favourite plus size models right now. As a blogger I was inspired by Gabifresh and Nadia Aboulhousn. A couple of years ago social media wasna��t as big as it is now and now it gives everyone the platform to have a voice and be heard. Now with all these plus models, bloggers, body activists and magazines demanding more, wea��re getting it,a�? she said.

Although she is not married and has no children, she said she believes in love as it is a�?the food of lifea�?.