“Pretty face, but not skinny enough.”
That was the feedback Avrill Cervantes, also known as Ave, recalls receiving at a runway casting. She was hoping to reach a dream she has held since starting modeling in 2021 but, instead, a compliment became a disqualification.
Ave is among three models who describe in online interviews with CoverStory how height, body size and appearance shape the jobs they pursue and why being visible in a campaign is not the same as having a fair shot at the next one.
There are different ways of being the wrong size in fashion. Ellyse Ocampo, standing 1.52-meters-plus (five-feet-plus), says casting calls often favor slimmer women and that opportunities for larger models remain concentrated in particular campaigns.
Thailand-based Russian Olga Podkovalnikova, a member of the world women’s basketball champion team and a high-fashion model and actress, says she has encountered the opposite problem: With a height of 1.95 m (6 feet 5 inches), she says she is too tall for the clothes designers have already made.
Their accounts raise a question behind advertising’s language of inclusivity: Who is actually allowed to work?
Measurements come first
Ave began with catalog and print projects during the Covid-19 pandemic. She has worked in front of and behind the camera, but still wants to walk the runway. She says height, proportions, skin tone and measurements shape her opportunities.
She says she was managing hormonal changes associated with endometriosis, making weight control difficult despite exercising and taking care of herself.
“What I found difficult was the expectation that I should simply become thinner, regardless of the circumstances or what it would take to achieve that appearance,” she tells CoverStory.
Ave says she has encountered runway requirements favoring women at least 1.7-m (5 feet 7 inches) tall, with slim frames and lighter complexions. The preference for lighter skin strikes her as especially troubling in a country where morena (brown) complexions are common.
She questions why Filipino models should be assessed against an ideal that overlooks the variety of Filipino features. She also recalls shoots where models were told not to eat beforehand and castings without useful feedback. But not every production operates this way, she stresses.
One remark can outlast the casting itself. Ave says repeated judgments have made her more conscious of her measurements, proportions and appearance in photographs. The effect extends beyond any missed job.
Curves, but only certain curves
Ellyse Ocampo came to modeling through a different route. A singer before entering the field in August 2025, she was invited to appear at a Makati club and later connected with photographers through Facebook groups. She accepted portfolio-building arrangements, or x-deals, with photographers.
The photographs helped her seek promotional and lingerie work. But she noticed that some casting preferences welcomed fuller busts and hips while demanding flat stomachs and narrow waists.
Ellyse describes herself as plus-size and 1.52 m (5 feet) tall. She says casting calls favor smaller clothing sizes, while height rules can exclude shorter women. One preferred feature does not guarantee an offer.
She recalls submitting a portfolio to a talent coordinator seeking performers for a film project, and being told there was no suitable role. The coordinator did not cite her measurements; she suspected a connection, though the reason remains unconfirmed.
She says she sometimes skips auditions because she assumes she will not qualify. An opportunity can disappear before a casting director makes a decision. Her doubts predate modeling: Sometime during a 2017 audition for “The Voice,” she says, the management team working with her advised her to lose weight. The experience reinforced her sense that talent and appearance are judged together in entertainment.
“Rejection still hurts, but I try to uplift myself and continue looking for other modeling opportunities,” she tells CoverStory. She sees more opportunities for slimmer models, while plus-size bookings are often limited to specialized clothing or lingerie campaigns.
Too tall for the sample
Olga challenges the assumption that only curvier women encounter sizing barriers. Pursuing modeling after playing basketball, she tried signing with agencies while living in Barcelona. She recalls a male friend of similar height attracting immediate interest while agencies dismissed her as too tall.
Acting later opened doors in Thailand. She recalls closing a show for Fly Now, where her height became an advantage not easily transferred to clothing campaigns.
Olga says she wears a medium size, yet sleeves and trousers are often too short. Stylists may need to reposition garments for photographs. Sometimes, she says, teams have booked her from headshots, only to discover her height when she arrived and abandon the plan.
Samples may simply be cut for someone else’s dimensions. A slim model can still fail a fitting. At 42, Olga takes rejection differently. “It doesn’t mean I’m bad,” she says. “I’m just not fit for them.”
She still attends castings because a show that rejects her may lead to an entirely different campaign months later. Casting, in her experience, also builds relationships.
She recalls being told to lose weight despite already being thin. If a job actually required it, she says, she would decline.
An international pattern
The women’s accounts cannot establish how frequently models are rejected because of size. But wider research identifies similar pressures. In the Philippines, CoverStory has reported on beauty ideals challenged in pageantry, including the 2024 Miss Iloilo victory of morena athlete Alexie Mae Brooks. Pageantry, however, is not the same labor market as paid modeling.
Vogue Business analyzed 9,283 looks across 219 shows and presentations in the four major fashion capitals for Spring/Summer 2027. It counted 97.5% as straight-size, 2% as mid-size, and just 0.5% as plus-size.
A 2026 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reviewed 793,199 records from runways, advertising, magazine covers and editorials between 2000 and 2024. It found greater visibility for different body types but little change in the typical model physique.
There is a difference between including a few bodies outside the usual range and changing the range itself. One produces an image. The other changes hiring, sample production and access to work.
What the pressure costs
Appearance requirements are sometimes presented as technical necessities: A prepared garment has to fit; a brand has a visual concept. Those constraints can be real. But they do not explain why models should be humiliated, left without meaningful feedback, or encouraged to disregard their health.
Ave says the strain is more complicated because of her endometriosis. She wants to improve at modeling without measuring her worth by a changing dress size. “I can want to improve my craft, become a better model, and pursue bigger opportunities without feeling like I need to punish my body to deserve them,” she says.
Meanwhile, Ellyse describes trying diets, exercise and weight-loss products in the past before choosing to embrace her body. Modeling, particularly shoots where she can express confidence in her appearance, has also become a way to overcome earlier insecurity. Some jobs have helped her feel comfortable in her skin.
Olga offers a different response. She argues that models can develop skills, learn which assignments suit them, and refuse to interpret every casting result as personal failure. She is less interested in a universal runway ideal than in practical clothing options for people who are unusually tall or short.
All three have seen or experienced possibilities outside conventional standards. Ave says smaller businesses sometimes cast more varied body types, and that she appreciates being selected for a recent project. Ellyse has found work in lingerie and promotional modeling. Olga has found projects that make her height the point rather than the problem.
But they do not agree on what inclusion should look like. Ave wants wider access to major campaigns and runways. Ellyse wants plus-size women considered beyond products specifically marketed to them. Olga questions whether every show needs every body type, and puts greater emphasis on garments actually being available in shoppers’ sizes.
“I would love to have more opportunities in the shop than in the model runway,” Olga says.
Inclusion is not a demand that every design should fit everybody. But it can be judged through hiring decisions: Who auditions? Whose measurements are considered ordinary? Who is paid, and who is told to change?
Ellyse puts the distinction plainly: “For me, body positivity should not just be something brands post on social media. It should also be shown through the models they hire.”
Fashion can celebrate individuality in a photograph and still rely on narrow measurements behind the camera. Until more kinds of bodies mean more genuine opportunities, visibility alone will remain an incomplete measure of progress. CS
Hannah L. Tabunda is a journalism graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman and a contributor to CoverStory. Her interests include feature writing, multimedia journalism, and “stories that explore people, culture, and lived experiences.” She also engages in such combat sports as karate, Muay Thai and boxing, and has taken up bouldering and top-rope climbing.
