Robyn Lawley: ‘You can’t win. They just want skinny’
Despite being called “plus-size”, model Robyn Lawley is the size of an average Australian woman. Now she’s speaking out about why watching the Victoria’s Secret show “didn’t make me feel good about myself.”
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The Harry Potter-esque scar is just visible under Robyn Lawley’s make-up.
It’s been there since the middle of last year, when the Australian model took a nasty tumble down a flight of stairs.
But Lawley, 29, has never been one to hide much — so she is defiantly embracing what she calls “the badass” mark on her forehead, along with the smaller ones on her lip and chin.
And she remains optimistic that the root cause of her fall — she’d suffered a seizure related to lupus, an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the body’s tissues and organs — will eventually be a distant footnote in medical history books.
“They’ll probably come up with a cure one day,” she says cheerfully as she sits down with Stellar.
“Even on the radio today, I heard that they found a new microchip they can put in to stop seizures. So I feel like it’s going to be cured — within my lifetime.”
Another “cure” Lawley would like to live long enough to witness is a wholesale improvement in how women — and in particular their bodies — are treated and reacted to on fashion runways.
Standing tall at six foot two (188cm), the size 12—14 model from Sydney’s western suburbs has consistently been referred to as “plus-size” since breaking into the industry with a Dolly magazine shoot in 2006. (In the years since, she’s featured on the pages of Vogue, Elle and Cosmopolitan.)
It is a term she believes sends a terrible message, especially since she is statistically the size of an average Australian woman.
It is also one of the reasons why, in October last year, she started a petition calling for a boycott of the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, writing that “I have spent a lot of my life looking at women in [Victoria’s Secret] ads that didn’t look like me, didn’t walk like me, and didn’t make me feel good about myself.”
Lawley is quick to point out the petition does not indicate personal hostility towards models who do participate in the show.
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“I’ve had a lot of girls [from Victoria’s Secret] contact me, and I feel bad because some of my good friends walk in that runway and I don’t want them to feel like I’m attacking them in any way. It’s never about the model.
“It’s more about the girls that are half my size and still just a little bit curvy. [Victoria’s Secret] still don’t even touch them — they say it’s ‘too cliché’ or they say ‘too obvious’,” she explains.
“These girls have beautiful bodies, and do work out, and sometimes they’re ‘too muscular’. You just can’t win! They just want skinny.”
Still, there are glimmers of change. For instance, Lawley points out, “I’ve shot more with female photographers in the last two years than in my entire career. That’s given me hope and drive because you can’t keep us women down.”
And Lawley herself is keen to instil a sense of self-confidence in the next generation — starting at home with her four-year-old daughter Ripley, who she had with partner Everest Schmidt, a lawyer.
“I’m just happy she’s talking,” says Lawley. “I have no cares... I’m like my parents, who were like, ‘Whatever you want to do, what makes you happy, do it.’ I’m going to be the same way. If she wants to be an astrophysicist or work in a restaurant, it is her choice.”
It is a laissez faire approach that’s borne out of triumphs, knock-backs and several humbling experiences in the years since Lawley found success.
“You think you know everything, especially in your early 20s,” she says with a laugh. “But then you look back and you’re like, ‘Man, I didn’t know anything.’ There’s no growth, there’s no experience. My 20s were for learning. My 30s are for living.”
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Originally published as Robyn Lawley: ‘You can’t win. They just want skinny’
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