Ethan James Green Captures 'We Are Family' Life-Loving Women in Fendi for Vogue Italia

Models Alva Claire, Ashley Graham, Jill Kortleve and Paloma Elsesser convened in September in Milan to be part of the Fendi show. The quartet then joined forces at a later date to discuss big and small conquests in the battle for body positivity, interviewed by Michele Fossi (IG) for Vogue Italia’s December 2020 issue.

Patti Wilson styles the four beauties in the ‘We Are Family’ Fendi tribute for images by Ethan James Green.(IG). Hair by Jimmy Paul; makeup by Dick Page

AOC shares quotes from the interview: Image above Ashley Graham (l) and Paloma Elsesser (r) by Ethan James Green. Image next: Jill Kortleve (l) and Alva Claire (r) by Ethan James Green.

AG: I found it particularly cathartic to be able to tell each other our respective “backstage traumas”. Like being mistaken for the hairdresser! (laughs).

JK: Or the makeup girl!

PE: Or being blocked at the entrance!

JK: Oh, it just happened to me this season! If security let me through, in the end, it was only because a model behind me confirmed that I was a colleague ...

AG: Like it or not, girls, we are pioneers, which makes our job not always easy.

PE: But being the forerunners is also a great honor, as well as a responsibility: the plus size models of the future will look to us as a point of reference and a source of inspiration.

AG: We hope at least that our work will serve to spare them the loneliness, the humiliations incurred by us!

AC: And that seeing us parading on such prestigious catwalks, so many curvy women who today don't feel comfortable in their bodies learn to like themselves more! And yet by leveraging this newfound self-esteem they can finally find the courage to make important decisions for their lives, such as sending a resume for a particularly ambitious job, or leaving the wrong man.

PE: Many designers, even today, fear that the association of their clothes with our sizes will damage the image of their brand. A beautiful and good nonsense. Why let's look in the mirror, girls: we're beautiful. We are models! And when we wear a dress, we know how to enhance it!

AG: Yes, if we know how to do it, and - I would like to point out - each of us in our own way. For the fashion industry we are all plus sizes, but the truth is that we are very different from each other, both in physicality and in personality. This is why it is important that, as happened during these last shows, we are given the opportunity to stand side by side on the catwalk, thus being able to show our uniqueness. Only in this way can we one day hope to tear off this cumbersome label, and return to being women, individuals. And not just a size.