Since she was spotted on Instagram by Pat McGrath in 2015, Paloma Elsesser has become a fixture in the global fashion industry. The renowned model has walked for the likes of Fendi, Versace, Simone Rocha, and Lanvin and has graced the cover of Vogue. Last season, however, Elsesser took a break from walking in any shows to have surgery. Her absence was keenly felt in a season that lacked body diversity on the runways across New York, London, Paris, and Milan. Now she’s back with a new perspective. Below she shares why, now more than ever, she’s called to represent body diversity on the runway.
The decision to take fall 2023 Fashion Week off came from the need to have a surgery that I had put off for a long time (which I go into in depth in my book Treasure, with photography by Zora Sicher). It was a time when I was interrogating my own authority and autonomy of my own body, as well as the authority and autonomy over my time. I had been putting off doing this surgery for a couple of years because of the nature of my job: the pace of it, the pressure of supporting my team, and also the ramifications of saying no to an opportunity or a show from a messaging standpoint. It always claws on the back of my mind—Am I letting down the people who rely on me for representation, to feel seen and cared for? Candidly, I was also burned out and feeling the fatigue of the industry.
Prioritizing my surgery was a moment when I chose myself. And even still with the physical distance during the February shows—when I was laid up in a surgery bed—I could feel the electricity from Fashion Week: the cellular memory of knowing this is normally when my life is slotted hour by hour, running from fittings, navigating yeses and nos, and being on.
I felt both a sense of relief and disappointment.
In my absence, choosing to step back, I felt there would be the opportunity for new talent and faces to fill that void. As has been reported, in the fall 2023 season globally, only 0.6% of the looks were modeled on a plus-size body [above a US size 14].
The response I got from stepping away for a season was interesting. Many people asked where I was and said the lack of diversity across all shows was felt. I was hopeful we would see continued progress, but there has been an unapologetic propensity toward thinness. The runway has always been the truest expression of where fashion exists. We take the sartorial temperature twice a year, and it is undeniable that we are steadily slipping backward when it comes to representation. We are contending with erasure on all fronts. We have to respond with urgency. If we do not call this out, taking this season as both an opportunity and an invitation to ask for increasing diversity, it’ll die out.
If fashion is both in pursuit of and in the business of fantasy, then why is the industry’s version of fantasy the same singular view of beauty we have held for decades? And just as importantly, what are we telling people, especially young people, about themselves when this is our only narrative? I hear the word empowerment frequently used to describe a collection and the impact it is meant to have on the women wearing it, and for me diversity is integral to that show of strength.
This month I am back at Fashion Week, recovered from my time away and doing the full circuit: There has been no easing back in. At times I desired to have a season or a return the same way that my straight-size contemporaries have when they’ve taken a season off—returning in a way that can be very poignant and concise. However in light of the disappearing diversity on runways, I feel more called to mobilize than ever—to show up and create a continued conversation for others to come with me, an undeniable momentum that keeps growing.
I love fashion, adding a joking caveat that that’s the problem. I love its energy, the fantasy found in a moment, and all the ways that we can express ourselves in these exceptional forms. My hope is that this season is an invitation, a christening, and a call to action. If we step backward, fashion becomes a derivative of what it’s actually destined to be, which is not one body or one identity. At its best, it’s an expression of all forms.