. Seeing those"beautiful babes strutting their stuff" gave Nicole Denise Johansson the push to become a model — a dream she shelved for years because she"didn't see myself" represented.
"We're not seeing enough different sizes, enough different body shapes or abilities or cultures come through," she says. Omri says she crafted a size 2 sample size and a size 20 as her"way of giving it back to the industry and all the people who told me in the beginning that this can't be done." Consumers have since changed their attitudes toward viewing models as clothing racks, but that doesn't change the dollars and cents of it all. Omri says making a size 2 and a size 20 sample size is"double the cost," because you can't simply use the size 2 pattern and make it larger when those body types are different. The industry, despite its pushes toward inclusivity, continues to need more work.