IS THIN out? Is plus size in?

In the fashion industry, where trends change faster than you can bat an eyelid, the new buzz for the new year could be the plus-size models.

These models have already appeared on two high-fashion magazines – Glamour in November last year and in V magazine’s size issue, which hit the stands last Thursday.

Mr Jon Ilani, director of Wilhelmina Models, one of the largest and most successful model management companies in the world, told CNN that there’s something a bit different this time around.

“We’ve seen sparks like this before, but this is the biggest spark,” Mr Ilani said, referring to the spreads.

Although it’s too early to tell whether or not the trend will stick, leading to more plus-size models landing upscale fashion campaigns and editorials, he said he has seen noticeable improvement.

Ms Krista Mays, a size 12 model who has already graced Glamour’s pages for editorials on finding the perfect pair of jeans, is optimistic that this year, the trend will stick.

She told CNN: “The work is picking up – I do agree that 2010 is going to be the ‘year of plus’.”

The industry is constantly growing, she said. To end last year with with the Glamour campaign, followed by V magazine, she said, certainly couldn’t hurt her career goals.

Ms Crystal Renn, the industry’s most successful plus-size model and potentially the face of a new movement in fashion, said photographers emphasise her size often on purpose.

The 1.79m-tall model weighs 74kg.

“You’re not big,” said a surprised creative director when he met her recently for her appearance in V magazine’s “size issue”.

“Because I am a plus-size model, they like to make an example (of me),” she told the New York Times.

“They see a roll, and they say, ‘Ooh, a roll!’ And they focus on it.”

Appreciate them all

The curvy size-12 model had recounted her tale of trying to fit in with the size-0 modelling crowd in her memoir, Hungry, released last year.

But she makes it clear that she’s not out to topple the thin models from their traditional throne of dominance in the fashion industry.

“I’d like to see everyone take on the attitude that there are women of all different shapes and sizes as ‘the beauty ideal’, and that it’s not one type or another,” she told The Associated Press.

“There are women who are naturally a size2 – you can’t forget them, and that’s discrimination the other way,” she added.

“All women bring something different to the table, and we have to appreciate them all.”

Ms Becca Thorpe-Litschewski, who has been a plus-size model for the past 10 years, told CNN: “We make a statement with what we’re doing in this industry, we’re saying something with our jobs.”

She recalled the days when plus-size models were relegated to catalogues that no one even knew existed, banished to wear nothing but oversized T-shirts and leggings.

Now, she said, they can wear the Dolce and Gabbana jumpsuit or designer jeans in a known fashion publication.

She added: ““Things like the V spread and the Glamour spread, they cause a momentum that can keep rolling forward until hopefully there won’t have to be a special issue.”

But will the plus-size models really change the face of the fashion industry?

There are some who say that the momentum may not be big enough yet to nudge the normal-size models aside.

Not huge market

Ms Muslimah Shabazz is not sure whether the magazine covers will lead to more jobs in the runway shows, beauty campaigns and high-end editorials.

She told CNN: “My agent hasn’t necessarily said, ‘There’s a movement! Let’s go out and get it!’ None of my agents have. The bottom line is that there aren’t that many jobs. V is just one magazine.”

For girls over size 10 who want to model, they can book “mostly catalogue work and lingerie”, said Ms Aida Brigman, MsShabazz’s agent at Click Model Management in New York City.

Ms Brigman said: “It’s not a huge market; it’s not as big as people would like it to be.”

Still, V’s creative director Stephen Gan says he’s more in tune than ever to what bigger models can offer.

He told New York Post: “In this world, when a girl’s called ‘beautiful’, sometimes, my reaction to that is, ‘In what terms? In fashion terms? Beauty pageant terms? Real people terms?’. I wish I could just say, ‘She’s beautiful’, and leave it at that.”