True Beauty

“While you are here, I want to check your measurements,” the head seamstress of one of my favorite designers in Dallas said before a big fashion show in 2007. As she took my measurements and looked at my model card, she was appalled.

“I don’t understand,” she barked. “Your card says this, but you really are this size! What happened?”

“I gained weight,” I replied plainly.

“Well, maybe you should just work out or do something about this,” she asserted.

I cringed. Maybe she didn’t know that I was currently in the grips of an eating disorder and constantly struggled with being thin enough. Maybe she did, but didn’t care. Maybe she was like most everyone in the fashion industry that silently congratulated any means necessary to remain super thin. All she cared about was having a model that was thin enough to wear the clothes. The sad part was is that at this time I was probably a small size 4.

“I do work out—a lot actually. I just gained a little weight. Such is life,” I told her, trying not to care.

The truth was that I did care. I knew that I had been too thin and obsessed with being as thin as possible. I love food and just could not starve myself any longer, so I had begun to gain some weight. For the past year, my weight had gone up and down as I struggled to remain as small as possible and trying to feed or ignore my starving spirit within me. Gaining weight as a model is shameful. I was no good if I wasn’t a size 0 or 2. I left that studio and went home— to work out.

A few days later it was my birthday and the day of the big fashion show at Victory Park. I love fashion shows—the excitement, the clothes, the people, the music, the lights and cameras. I was excited to see what they had for me to wear. As I tried on a skinny little pencil skirt, I realized that I couldn’t pull it up all the way because it was too small—or I was just too big. I instantly thought back to the measuring tape incident where I had been found out to be bigger than my agency said I was. I thought about the evil seamstress who told me I needed to work out more because I was too big. One of the assistants kindly switched my outfit with another girl and now I had a beautiful flowing wrap skirt. I loved it!

Later as we were getting dressed into our first look for the fashion show, the evil seamstress was in the dressing rooms, barking orders and acting like a drill sergeant, "helping" everyone get ready. To her glory and satisfaction, she was probably thrilled that I, this fat model had to have her wardrobe edited to accommodate her large hips. She made it a point to tie my new wrap skirt very tight—so tight that she pinched my skin.

“Ouch!” I flinched as she caught some skin in the knot.

“Oh, is it too tight?” Hitler’s wife smiled.

What a b$%@! I thought. She was bent on making me pay for gaining weight, wasn’t she? I was no longer the ideal model size. I was disposable and replaceable. She just had to prove her point that I was too big for all of the clothes and she just couldn’t take it that I hadn’t been thrown out of the show.

I don’t remember too many fashion shows or photo shoots after that point. I finally cancelled my contract the next year and stopped modeling all together. I was getting help for my depression and eating disorder. I had also just met Ashton and was engaged. When I think back on my modeling career, I am happy I did it. I had lots of fun, traveled, took some really great pictures, met some fun people in the fashion world and went to some great parties and exciting photo shoots.

But God had something else in mind for me. People always tell me that I look like a model or tell me that I should model. I smile and say thanks. Sometimes I even tell them that I used to. They ask me why I don’t any more. I try to say as little as possible, like: Modeling is a very selfish and sick career. It just wasn’t for me. Then I throw in the funny comment about how I love food too much. They laugh and that’s about it. As glad as I am that I did it and now that I don’t do it any more, it has made me realize what true beauty is. True beauty is the person that is looking back at you when you look into the mirror. But is even more than that.

“Rather, beauty is something internal that can't be destroyed. Beauty expresses itself in a gentle and quiet attitude which God considers precious” (1 Peter 3:4 God’s Word Translation).

The modeling industry may never understand true, internal beauty. Most models may be perfect and flawless on the outside, but they are deeply disturbed and tortured on the inside because they have— like I have and many others have—believed the lie that your worth is based on a number on a scale, a number on a measuring tape, or a number on a pair of jeans. I am so thankful that God has healed me from believing that lie and I love the size that I am now!

God, help us as women to see ourselves as you do. Help us to cultivate our inner beauty from a gentle and graceful spirit that only you can provide.