Famous plus size models: who they are and what they changed

When people search for famous plus size models they usually want two things: names and a reason to remember them. A list of faces is easy to find. What is harder to find is who did what, when, and what the industry said back. This guide collects the most-searched names, with milestones checked against the publications that reported them, and then looks at what changed and what is still argued about.

It is not a ranking. "Top plus size models" has no official list, and the careers below are very different: a catalogue star, a runway pioneer, an activist with a hashtag, an editorial face. If you want to understand the work itself, start with our plus size modeling guide. For the money side of supermodel careers in general see highest-paid models.

The models at a glance

Model	Known for	Dated milestones
Emme	Pioneer of the 1990s US plus size market	People "50 Most Beautiful People" list in 1994; top plus size model in the US by 1996, as reported by UPI
Candice Huffine	High fashion editorial and the Pirelli calendar	Vogue Italia cover 2011; Pirelli calendar 2015
Ashley Graham	Covers, lingerie and body activism	Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover 2016; American Vogue March 2017
Tess Holliday	#effyourbeautystandards and social media	Signed to MiLK Management in early 2015; Cosmopolitan UK cover October 2018
Paloma Elsesser	Fashion week, beauty and Vogue	Savage X Fenty 2018 launch; Vogue cover January 2021
Precious Lee	Campaigns, Vogue and the Met Gala	Lane Bryant campaign and Sports Illustrated pages 2016; American Vogue September 2021
Hunter McGrady	Swimwear and advocacy	First Sports Illustrated Swimsuit appearance 2017; 2024 anniversary cover
Jill Kortleve	Runway	Alexander McQueen debut; Fendi and Chanel autumn/winter 2020

Ashley Graham

Ashley Graham is the name people search for most, far ahead of any other plus size model. She was spotted by an agency in a shopping mall in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 2000 at the age of 12, signed with Wilhelmina in 2001 and moved to Ford in 2003, according to The Hollywood Reporter. In 2013 she designed a lingerie line for the Canadian plus size brand Addition Elle.

The turning point was Sports Illustrated. She first appeared in a Swimsuit Issue advertisement for Swimsuits for All in 2015, was named a rookie in 2016 and was one of that year's three cover stars alongside Ronda Rousey and Hailey Clauson. Sports Illustrated itself describes the cover as the first time a plus size model appeared on the issue's front page. In March 2017 she was on the cover of American Vogue with Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid and others, and WWD reported her as the first plus size model on that cover.

She also gave a TEDx talk titled "Plus-size? More like my size" in 2015 and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2016. Vogue quotes the IMG executive Mina White as the person who helped make her a household name.

Tess Holliday

Tess Holliday built her career in a different way, through Instagram. She started the hashtag #effyourbeautystandards after people kept commenting on her photos that she was too big to wear certain clothes. She posted four photos of herself in things women of her size are often told they cannot wear and invited others to do the same. By 2018 Cosmopolitan UK reported the hashtag had been used more than 3.2 million times.

In early 2015 she signed with MiLK Management in the UK, reported by the Associated Press as the first model of her size signed to a major agency. In August 2018 she appeared on the cover of Cosmopolitan UK's October issue.

The cover split opinion. The British broadcaster Piers Morgan said that celebrating it was as dangerous and misguided as celebrating size-zero models, and some critics argued it promoted ill health. Cosmopolitan UK's editor Farrah Storr replied that it was one cover with a larger woman on it, in a culture that had venerated thinness for as long as she could remember. Both sides of that argument are still repeated today.

Paloma Elsesser

Paloma Elsesser grew up in Los Angeles and studied literature and psychology at the New School in New York. She had not planned to model. After agencies turned her down, she was noticed by the make-up artist Pat McGrath, who was casting faces for her own cosmetics line, and McGrath became a mentor. In 2018 she was cast alongside Bella and Gigi Hadid for the launch of Rihanna's Savage X Fenty lingerie line, as Business of Fashion reported.

Her Vogue cover story, shot by Annie Leibovitz, ran in January 2021. By then she had walked for Fendi and Ferragamo and taken part in Coach's Originals campaign, and the designers Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, who cast her from 2017, said that fitting clothes on her had shaped the evolution of their designs. Mina White told Vogue: "Paloma had to come in and create her own category."

Elsesser has been direct about the mechanics of change. In the same story she explained that if a size 14 model refuses a show, it may not cast anyone larger, so a sample in that size is never made and other models of her size are not shot in anything but lingerie or a jacket. "There's a whole cycle happening," she said.

Precious Lee

Precious Lee, from the Atlanta area, told Vogue Australia she fell into modeling by accompanying a nervous friend to a casting, and her first client was lingerie. In her own essay for Refinery29 she describes moving to New York to model full time and, after two years, booking a Lane Bryant campaign shot by Cass Bird, followed by a three-page Sports Illustrated spread in 2016. She describes herself there as the first Black plus size model to appear in Vogue and on the pages of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

She was also one of the first plus size models to walk a New York Fashion Week show for Christian Siriano, and has walked for him every season since, in her words. In September 2021 she was on the cover of American Vogue, and she has been a Pandora face.

Her main argument is about supply. In the Refinery29 essay she asks why larger sizes sell out first on store racks when, as she writes, the majority of American women are looking for them, and why fashion still works with a single sample size.

Candice Huffine

Candice Huffine started modeling long before the current wave. According to Vogue she signed her first contract in 2000 and had been a teenage pageant competitor before that. In 2010 photographer Sølve Sundsbø shot her for the "Curves Ahead" editorial in V magazine's Size Issue. In 2011 she was on a Vogue Italia cover shot by Steven Meisel, with Robyn Lawley and Tara Lynn.

In 2014 Vogue reported her inclusion, at size 16, in the 2015 Pirelli calendar, again photographed by Meisel, and called her the first plus size model to appear in that spread. Her stated goal then was simple: "I just want the straight-size and plus world to not have a division."

Emme

Emme is one of the pioneers. A 1996 UPI profile calls her the top plus size model in the US and says she had been named to People's 50 Most Beautiful People list two years earlier. She worked with brands such as Liz Claiborne, Bloomingdale's and J.C. Penney as a Ford model. In the same piece she criticised film and television for showing a narrow ideal of the female body.

When Sports Illustrated put Ashley Graham on its cover in February 2016, ABC News described Emme as known as America's first plus size model, and she told Good Morning America it was "a very, very big stake in the ground" and "not a trend".

Hunter McGrady

Hunter McGrady first appeared in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit in 2017, according to the magazine's own model page, and was one of four cover stars of the 60th anniversary issue in 2024. She has also been on the covers of Health and The Knot. Sports Illustrated describes her as known for her dedication to body acceptance and inclusivity, and in an Oprah Daily interview in May 2024 she said, "Beauty is not a number. Beauty is not a size."

Jill Kortleve

Jill Kortleve, from Heerlen in the Netherlands, was signed by MiLK and moved to New York. She made her runway debut for Alexander McQueen as a near unknown two years before the autumn/winter 2020 season. In that season, British Vogue reported, she walked for Valentino, Michael Kors, Mugler and Molly Goddard, was among the first plus size models ever on the Fendi runway, and was the first curve model on the Chanel runway since Crystal Renn a decade earlier.

She told Vogue: "Being the right fit for a brand is not about your size." She hoped the next season would bring more models of different sizes onto the runway, since "we're showing that it is possible".

The Vogue story on Elsesser also names Precious Lee and Alva Claire as models on the Milan catwalks that season.

What these models changed, and what is still argued about

What changed

• Covers. Plus size models appeared on Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, American Vogue, Vogue Italia and Cosmopolitan UK covers, which a generation earlier would have been rare.
• Runways. Houses such as Fendi and Chanel cast curve models in 2020, as Vogue noted.

What is still disputed

• Who was first. Time named Robyn Lawley, a US size 12, as the first plus size model in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit in 2015, while The Hollywood Reporter called Graham's 2016 rookie year the second after Lawley. Graham's cover is described as the first plus size cover. Definitions of "plus size" decide the answer.
• The label. Many of these models use "curve" or "plus size" for work reasons but question the term. Graham's talk title says as much.
• Sample sizes. Elsesser, Lee and Kortleve all return to the same point: until samples exist in larger sizes, casting stays narrow.
• The health debate. Critics of the Holliday cover argued about health. Others replied that a cover is a representation of a person at work, not advice.

For the wider history see body diversity in fashion and modeling.

What you can learn from their careers

• Several paths. Graham came through agencies and commercial work, Holliday through social media, Elsesser through a beauty muse role and Kortleve through the runway. Read how to become a plus size model.
• Agency choice matters. See plus size modeling agencies and how to choose a modeling agency.
• The work is varied. Catalogue, swimwear, runway and fit work pay differently: plus size modeling jobs and pay and how much models make.
• Posing counts. Practise with our plus size photoshoot poses.
• Start without a big name. Most working models never become famous, and you can still apply to a professional agency for free. A short definition is in the modeling glossary.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the most famous plus size model?

By search interest it is Ashley Graham, who was on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover in 2016 and American Vogue in March 2017. Tess Holliday and Paloma Elsesser follow.

Who was the first plus size supermodel?

There is no single answer. UPI called Emme the top plus size model in the US in 1996, Candice Huffine was on Vogue Italia in 2011, and Ashley Graham on American Vogue in 2017. Which one counts depends on how you define "plus size" and "supermodel".

Who was the first plus size model on a Vogue cover?

WWD reported Ashley Graham as the first plus size model on the cover of American Vogue, in March 2017. Candice Huffine had appeared on Vogue Italia in 2011, and Paloma Elsesser on American Vogue in January 2021.

What size are plus size models?

It varies by market and agency. Vogue described Candice Huffine as a size 16 in 2014, Paloma Elsesser told Vogue she is a size 14, and Precious Lee wrote that she is a size 14, sometimes 16. See our guide to what is considered plus size.

What is Tess Holliday known for?

For the #effyourbeautystandards hashtag and for signing with MiLK Management in 2015, which the Associated Press reported as a first for a model of her size. In 2018 she was on the cover of Cosmopolitan UK.