Photographer Charges $100 More For Plus-Size Models, Tries To Justify It Online But People Are Not Buying His Excuses

The fashion industry is notorious for being harsh to plus-sized women who want to make their bodies seen and their voices heard. Luckily, the body-positive movement keeps on getting stronger, with people of all shapes and sizes challenging unrealistic beauty standards and speaking up about their experiences.

Last week, Megan Mesveskas, owner of modeling agency Model Nexus specializing in body diversity, exposed a well-known NYC-based photographer William Lords. The 24-year-old woman reached out asking about his rates and availability and, in response, his studio manager sent a troubling email with two different prices — one for “standard” models and another for “plus/curve” ones.

The man quickly faced backlash from the internet after Megan decided to shine a light on this baffling revelation on Instagram. Later on, model Sixtine Rouyre who is signed to Model Nexus, talked about this incident with her 573K TikTok followers, saying this is an example of “how awful the modeling industry is to anyone over a size zero.” Read on to find out the whole story.

In her video, Megan Mesveskas revealed the photographer charged $950 to shoot “standard” models, but $1050 to photograph curvy models.

Mesveskas told Newsweek that neither curve nor plus-sized have much meaning. “Every woman, regardless of her dress size, has curves. I’d love to see a human being without a curve,” she noted in an email. “‘Plus-size’ is meaningless too. Plus according to who or what? I think these are unfortunate categorizations that are made because the world still finds it shocking to see any woman above a size 2 modeling.”

“So it’s a way for the public to rationalize it ‘oh, she’s not a real model, she’s a plus-size model’,” Mesveskas continued. “We don’t require brunette [models] to identify themselves as such. We don’t ask [blue-eyed] models to sit alone in a category. So I’d love to know why should all women outside of 2 dress sizes be called ‘plus’ or ‘curve’?”

The woman revealed she was a model herself for eight years before starting her agency Model Nexus. Mesveskas said she often comes across brands that charge more for clothing made for “large-sized women,” but this incident was the first time she has seen the same for photographers.

“After speaking with many models, no one has even heard of a higher rate for models with a lot of acne or one who would need exponentially more photoshop retouching — so to see this applied arbitrarily against women who a photographer deems as non-standard sized is really odd at best and discriminatory at worst,” she added.

Rouyre’s video caught the attention of famous Canadian fashion model Coco Rocha. “It feels like the industry is slipping backwards,” she commented. “Over the last 6 months, I’ve seen more & more signs that what little ground was gained is being lost.”

After receiving backlash in the wake of the video, William Lords told Newsweek that he believed the email, which was written by his studio manager, was taken out of context. Lords explained he charges the extra $100 for curve models because of the time and cost involved in getting “creative and high end” garments that are on par with clothing offered to “straight-sized” models.

“Most of them [curve models] say what they want, and you know what it is? The high-end stuff. They want the stuff that the straight-sized models have,” he said.

The photographer mentioned he has purchased a lot of curve clothes costing around $1,000 per look on his own. The man does this so that models would get the clothes “they deserve” and “$100 is absolutely nothing compared to what I do for these girls,” he said.

Lords added he decided to adjust his rates by making the sessions cost the same no matter the model’s size. However, the quality of clothes will be different — he will now ask models to bring their own clothing. “They are going to have to go out and use their own credit cards to get the best clothes and see how difficult that is,” he added.

Later on, model Sixtine Rouyre posted another video on TikTok reacting to Lords’ words. “He makes it sound like we should be thanking him for giving us the same respect and treatment as he gives standard models,” she said. “Why should that cost us more?”