Size 10 Tahnee wins Australia’s Next Top Model with 82% of public vote. Fashion industry: ARE YOU LISTENING?

Red Faces? No, Tahnee Atkinson last night on Top Model.
I know I'm 24hrs late with this post but yesterday I was distracted by….other things. Like chairing an all-day meeting of the National Body Image Advisory Group.

How timely then, that I'd spent part of the previous night watching the last half hour of the Top Model final, just in time to see size 10 Tahnee announced as the winner of the reality-show-meets-model-contest. With a bloody nose. Loved that….

As we spent yesterday's working meeting going through the many different components of our proposed National Body Image strategy (will tell you more about that in the next few weeks but it involves a code of conduct for the media, modelling and fashion industries as well as a raft of proposed community education programs and initiatives – ALL GOOD), at one point we discussed the model show.

Oi girls! Host Sarah Murdoch with finalists Tahnee and Cassie. Picture: Ben Symons/Foxtel

The Punch's Tory Maguire published her list of top quotes from the night and praised how uniquely Aussie the show was – unlike so many local versions of international reality show formats which are mind-numbingly cookie-cutter……

Judge Charlotte Dawson (who is admitedly a Kiwi, but for tonight
I’m claiming her): “Oh come on, she’s climbed Rooty Hill, not Mt
Everest.”
Dawson again (she’ll feature in this list a lot): “She walked like a newborn foal that was drunk when it was born”.
Sarah Murdoch introducing a red headed contestant: “It’s Fanta pants herself!”
Dawson to two girls wearing very tight Alex Perry dresses: “Don’t worry, you won’t be organ donors after wearing those.”
Dawson again, encouraging the eventual winner Tahnee to get back at
a girl who called her fat: “Now you’re in the top 2 and it’s nah, nah,
nah, nah, nah to Mikarla.”
Style director Johnathan Pease about a particularly cold, rainy photo shoot: “You remember Russell, it was retarded out there.”
Murdoch in an aside after introducing the mother of the contestant
with the drunken foal walk: “That’s were she gets her catwalk from!”
Murdoch again: “I’ll now call on myself to cast my own vote. It’s hard hosting yourself isn’t it.”
Murdoch reacting to Tahnee’s nasal hemorrhage: “I think that’s a
first for a Top Model final, we have a nose bleed ladies and gentlemen.”

But I want to talk about the predictable shitstorm over the winner. Yes, Cassi (below) is going to be the one who is going to get more work – here and especially internationally. The majority of judges voted for her. But the public? The public wanted Tahnee. She got 82.5% of the public votes according to Sarah Murdoch today on Twitter.

And what does that tell us? The public LIKE Tahnee's body. They like Tahnee. So one would assume if you were selling a product, say….a swimsuit or fashion brand – you might want to use Tahnee in your advertising since your CUSTOMERS (young women) LIKE Tahnee.
But no. Already, when Tahnee and Cassi went to castings for Australian fashion week, very few designers wanted Tahnee to model their clothes.
As fashion blogger Patty Huntington wrote yesterday on Frockwriter:

"Already at RAFW, when van den Dungen and Clare
Venema booked more shows than Atkinson, it was abundantly clear that
even Australian fashion designers, who are known for casting much
larger models than their European counterparts, did not think Atkinson
was the right look for their shows. "

So the public wants to see more of models who look like Tahnee? The media and the fashion industry don't care. Even though we are their customers. Yet again I am predicting they will put their heads in the sand and blindly, wilfully insist on casting Cassi and models who look just like her. Not that I'm bagging Cassi for being thin – she's a beautiful girl (let's leave questions of personality aside since modelling does not CARE what kind of samaritan you are – just ask Naomi Campbell). But she is the SAME body type as every other model out there.

By voting for Tahnee (below), isn't the public screaming for something
different? Some diversity? An alternative to wall-to-wall skinny?