Fashion's Alarming Return to Skinny Ideals
As the final curtains fall on another fashion week season, a troubling pattern has emerged across global runways. The fashion industry is experiencing a dramatic retreat from body diversity, with curve representation plummeting by 50% on major catwalks according to shocking new statistics gathered in February 2025.
This disturbing trend forms the central investigation of Cutting the Curve, a bold new docuseries that examines fashion's renewed obsession with thinness and the real human cost behind shifting beauty standards.
The Historical Cycle of Body Trends
The current situation represents a painful full-circle moment for an industry that has cycled through body ideals for decades. The 1960s introduced skinny as the new beauty standard, coinciding with fashion's pivot toward teenage consumers rather than older women. This slim, almost childlike physique symbolised the era's growing obsession with youth.
The 1990s saw skinny re-emerge as the dominant fashion fantasy, with "heroin chic" dominating catwalks and billboards. These models embodied a specific type of cool—independent, rebellious, and effortlessly glamorous. Yet even then, countercurrents existed, with Sophie Dahl's 1997 runway appearance and her subsequent role as the face of Yves Saint Laurent's Opium perfume in 2000 challenging the status quo.
The 2010s brought what many hoped was permanent change. The body positivity movement, amplified by social media, challenged conventional beauty standards and highlighted intersectionality. Curve, queer, and disabled bodies finally gained visibility in an industry long dominated by a single silhouette.
Inside the Documentary Investigation
So why in 2025 are we witnessing this regression? Award-winning director Julia Parnell, known for human-centred stories across music and culture, sought answers. "As a documentary maker, but really as a human, I've always been interested in fashion as art that mirrors society," Parnell explains. "Clothes shape our identity and the industry shapes our self worth."
Parnell partnered with co-producer Evelyn Ebury, who brought fashion expertise from both UK and New Zealand contexts. Together they assembled crucial voices, including curve model and opera singer Isabella Moore and British model Hannah Janes, who has witnessed two decades of industry shifts.
The timing coincides with what Parnell describes as a perfect storm: "We saw a 50 per cent drop in plus size and curve representation on all the major catwalks" exactly as GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy became mainstream conversation topics.
The Human Cost of Fashion's Fickleness
For models living through this reversal, the professional and emotional impact is profound. Isabella Moore entered the industry during peak inclusivity around 2019, when curvy bodies like Ashley Graham and Precious Lee were becoming regular sights in fashion campaigns.
"When I noticed that beauty standards were drifting back to the idea of skinny, and the acceptance that bigger bodies had just been a trend, it was really scary," Moore confesses. She observes not just fewer bookings, but a fundamental shift in how curve models are treated during shoots—from comprehensive styling to basic front shots that merely prove larger sizes exist.
British curve model Hannah Janes brings twenty years of perspective, having transitioned from straight-size modeling to curve work to protect her mental health. "It just wasn't a good mental health decision for me anymore to work as a straight model," she reveals. Now she faces the familiar rejection of "we don't shoot curve" and has seen her regular weekly jobs disappear to the point where paying rent has become uncertain.
The documentary recreates the vulnerability of model castings, where Moore experienced the humiliation of not fitting sample sizes—usually the largest available, with no larger options to request.
Deeper Cultural Forces at Play
The series doesn't shy away from examining the uncomfortable roots of fashion's preferences. Many scholars and cultural critics argue that racism is woven into the history of the "skinny ideal" and the industry's preference for less curvy bodies.
Moore, a New Zealand-born Sāmoan soprano, discusses how her ambiguity rather than her cultural heritage has advanced her career. "If I looked more Samoan I don't think I'd have the career I have today," she admits, expressing guilt about opportunities that escape other Pacific people who don't fit Western beauty ideals.
With the rise of right-wing politics worldwide, the documentary suggests the runway has followed suit, rolling back body diversity just as broader cultural conversations become more exclusive.
Cutting the Curve represents the first documentary series to bridge Pacific, New Zealand, and UK perspectives on this global issue. As Ozempic dominates headlines, this investigation goes beyond exposing the industry to reveal why sustaining true inclusion remains so difficult when bodies become commodified and trends inevitably shift.
