Charli Howard: Size six model who left ‘body-shaming' agency in open letter says she was at 'breaking point'

'I began questioning whether or not a size six to eight was big'

Charli Howard posted an angry letter about her agency on Facebook (Facebook)

The model who spoke out against her agency in an open letter for allegedly telling her she was too big to work has said she wanted to warn young girls about the pressures of the industry.

Charli Howard claims she left her agency in a “f**k you” letter after being told she was “too big” to work in the fashion industry and “out of shape” despite being a UK size six to eight.

The 23-year-old from Peckham, south east London, criticised the “ridiculous, unobtainable beauty standards” in a letter posted on her Facebook page.

 

A photo posted by Charli Howard (@charlihoward) on Oct 5, 2015 at 7:56am PDT

“The more you force us to lose weight and be small, the more designers have to make clothes to fit our sizes, and the more young girls are being made ill. It's no longer an image I choose to represent,” she wrote.

Howard’s letter made headlines globally and comes after a number of models have openly criticised the fashion industry for body-shaming by telling them they need to lose weight.

Howard, who did not identify the modelling agency in her letter, said a number of women contacted her claiming they were facing similarly unrealistic and unhealthy expectations over their weight.

 

A photo posted by Charli Howard (@charlihoward) on Oct 9, 2015 at 1:52am PDT

“I think the moment was when I began questioning whether or not a size six to eight was big,” she told the BBC.

“I began realising that there isn’t a problem with me and I’d had enough.

“I was getting messages on Instagram from young girls saying: ‘I want to be a model, how can I be a model? Can you give me any tips? And I just thought, why? Why do you want this for your life when you could be an astronaut?“

Howard says the unprecedented reaction and support she has received in response to her letter highlighted body-shaming as a problem that still needs tackling in the industry.

“Modelling is a really lonely profession and you become so accustomed to being on your own, travelling on your own, so when I said it, I kind of expected to be alone in it. The fact is that it has been shared and I’ve had all of these emails and things shows that is affecting men, woman and transgender people, all different cultures.”

Her claims echo those made by the Swedish model Agnes Hedengard, who shared a video of herself in her underwear on Facebook after being rejected by casting agents because her hips were “too wide”. She has a body mass index of 17.5, which is considered underweight.

The UK agency Howard was previously represented by did not respond to The Independent’s request for comment.