Plus Size Model Tess Holliday Is Making It Big

US model ​Tess Holliday is an Instagram sensation, beauty icon and leader of the global size-inclusive movement. She tells Anita Bhagwandas about her turbulent road to success and how her most vocal trolls and haters are from the UK.

- Anita Bhagwandas

TESS HOLLIDAY IS HERE. AT LEAST, SHE’S MEANT TO be. Not that you can actually tell. Because the sea of bodies in front of her, waiting for a ‘meet and greet’ at the inaugural Curve Fashion Festival in Manchester - the first of its kind celebrating fashion over a size 16 in the UK – seems endless. ‘Events like this help women realise that they’re not alone,’ says Holliday, when I finally get to meet her. ‘I think that’s the most important part of all of this.’

Holliday – for those who’ve been living under a rock – is the largest model ever, at a UK size 26, to be signed by a major model agency, Milk Management in New York. But she’s more than a model – she’s outspoken, calls out the industry for a lack of diversity, and is aiming to change the rhetoric around being ‘fat’ (her words) with a social-media campaign called #effyourbeautystandards. With more than 1 Million Instagram followers, and covers on mega US magazines People and LA Weekly, life is pretty sweet for a Mississippi gal who was a dentist’s receptionist just five years ago.