Lizzi Miller Opens Up About Body Image, Overweight Childhood, How Glamour Nude Shoot Changed Her Life and the Industry
Plus-size model Lizzie Miller backstage at the OneStopPlus.com Spring 2011 fashion show. Photo: Richie Buxo / Splash News
"Seeing someone not airbrushed, with an average looking body, compared to all those stick-thin pictures of perfection -- I guess people thought: 'Wow! This girl looks like me,'" Miller, 21, tells the Daily Mail.
"It really struck a chord. The work flooded in, with lucrative contracts with American and Italian fashion labels."
Indeed, since baring her belly, which she calls "the part of myself I was most insecure about," the 5-foot-11, size 12 stunner has not only starred in glossy photo shoots but also recently strutted her stuff in OneStopPlus.com's first-ever plus-size runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Yet despite her recent triumphs, Miller admits that she struggled with her weight and body image growing up.
"Obesity runs in my family," she tells the UK newspaper. "I've never been a thin girl and I didn't eat healthily. Every day after school, I would get a bag of Doritos and three Ferrero Rocher chocolates. I ate a lot of cheeseburgers and not enough vegetables"
By age 12, the California native, who recently appeared in a body-image PSA for the Girl Scouts, weighed more than she does now, and endured a lot of teasing because of it.
"One guy e-mailed me a picture in which he'd drawn purple stretch marks all over it," she recalls.
"He also told me that when I wore shorts, people would have to look away in disgust because my legs were so ugly. When I sprained my ankle, he told me another guy had said it was because I was too fat to support myself."
Lizzie Miller in her famous nude Glamour photo shoot. Photo courtesy of Glamour magazine
The bullying left her fearful of showing her legs in public for years. "If guys looked at me in the street, I'd never think they were checking me out," Miller admits. "I'd assume they were looking at how fat my legs were."
Tired of being known as "the fat girl," Miller joined Weight Watchers and got a different kind of attention as she peeled off the pounds.
"People came up to me all the time to ask if I was a model," says Miller, who went on a casting call and got signed by Wilhelmina at age 13.
Since launching her career, Miller has seen many changes in the fashion industry. "When I started modeling eight years ago, plus-size clothes were shapeless potato sacks," she tells the Daily Mail.
"Designers were trying to hide the figure because they didn't know what to do with it. Now, it is better tailored."
Additionally, plus-size models like Crystal Renn are now working the runways for Chanel, magazines have dedicated issues to full-figured women, and curvy "Mad Men" star Christina Hendricks has become revered for her hourglass shape.
While Miller believes the industry still has a long way to go before plus-size models are simply referred to as just "models," she is happy that her Glamour magazine bare-all has helped women -- including herself -- feel more comfortable in their own skin.
"My weight has been an issue I've struggled with all my life," she says, "but the response I got made me realize other people out there felt like me."
In related news, check out StyleList's Runway Review of the OneStopPlus.com Fashion Week show.
Tags: body image, Glamour magazine, Lizzi Miller, Lizzie Miller, nude photo shoot, OneStopPlus, plus-size, plus-size models
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Shoefly, 9-22-2010, 9:48AM
Sounds like she's much healthier now, too -- not eating junk food does so much good for your wellbeing, not just your waistline! Glad some of her growing happiness and confidence is from that, and from helping young girls, not just because of the runways.
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