Curvy model ‘made to wear fat padding’ as she was ‘too small’ for plus size shoots

Iskra Lawrence was often forced to wear fat padding because she wasn’t considered large enough in her early years as a model.

Now 32, Iskra has become one of the UK’s most prominent plus size models with over 5million Instagram followers.

She has spoken candidly about her difficult early days getting into modelling, revealing she was once “catcalled” during an uncomfortable F1 grid girl audition when she was only 16.

READ MORE: Curvy model Iskra Lawrence ‘catcalled’ at 16 in ‘uncomfortable’ F1 grid girl audition

And, the model also shared her frustration at being shut out from some agency work for her curvaceous figure, only to be told to wear fat padding at other shoots to make her appear bulkier.

“I was a successful model at that point in that I was able to pay my rent and eat, there were many years when I was not,” she began, speaking on the Real Pod podcast.

“So I did feel like I was a model, and I felt more confident calling myself a model, even though I simultaneously felt embarrassed because people would look me up and down when they asked me.”

Despite having started to make a sustainable living from her work, Iskra admitted that her figure had caused contention among the community, which she claimed consistently judged her for her size.

“I felt like I had to say [I was a] plus size model. Other plus size models didn’t like me because I was kind of coming into their industry and sometimes getting their jobs,” she recalled.

“At the same time, I would book clients and then when I was on set, the actual people who were the stylists were then like, ‘you’re way too small, we need you to wear fat padding’.

“It was a really tricky time, and at some point I had to say to my agency, ‘I do not want to pad, this isn’t why I went down this route. This isn’t why I have fought for the last 10 years to change this industry to just wear fat pads’.

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“It’s not okay, it’s just as bad as photoshopping me smaller.

However, Iskra’s big break finally came when she was signed to shoot with women’s clothing brand Aerie, who she suggested were the first to properly embrace her natural figure.

“It wasn’t until I got Aerie, and Aerie was just willing to have me as I was, that I could say, ‘bye, I’m never wearing these fat pads again, I don’t have to compromise because of this client’,” she explained.

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