Ashley Graham Just Got Real About How Hard It Is to Find a Dress for a "Girl My Size"
During an interview for E!'s Live From the Red Carpet at Sunday night's Oscars, model Ashley Graham got very real about how hard it is for a curvy woman to find the right dress for the Oscars, or any fancy event for that matter.
"Trying to find a dress for the Oscars, a girl my size, [with] these girls this size — I mean, it has been a whole job in itself," Graham told host Giuliana Rancic.
By "a girl my size," she meant women who aren't a size 0 or two, and by "these girls these size," she meant her breasts, which were complemented quite well in her red, body-hugging Bao Tranchi dress.
Graham's appearance on the show came just days after her figure was criticized by former model Cheryl Tiegs, who took issue with Graham's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover. That cover, by the way, made history as Graham was the first plus-size model to grace it.
By being candid at the Oscars, Graham's voice joins the chorus of other women in Hollywood who have been vocal about the fashion challenge facing women above a size 0 or 2. Stars like Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCarthy have called out the designers and stylists who effectively ignore women of a certain size.
"Two Oscars ago, I couldn't find anybody to do a dress for me," McCarthy told Redbook in 2014. "I asked five or six designers — very high-level ones who make lots of dresses for people — and they all said no."
Most recently, at the Golden Globes in January, actress Bryce Dallas Howard told Rancic that she actually buys her own dresses for red carpet events because it's just simply too hard to find a good one in a size six.
The statement lit up the Twittersphere, with women strongly relating to Dallas Howard's situation.
Which is why women are so excited to see women of Graham's proportions at these sorts of celebrity-filled events. Before Graham made her statement, women on Twitter were especially happy about seeing her on the fashion panel alongside Kris Jenner and fashion expert Zanna Roberts Rassi.
With women already tuning in to watch her, Graham chose just the right time to be honest about what it's like finding a red carpet-appropriate look as a curvier woman. It just happens to be something that so many women the world over completely understand.
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