As the fashion industry gears up for the January debut of V Magazine’s plus-size issue everyone’s talking about the photos that have already been leaked of plus-size model Crystal Renn. As seen in the photo above this is just one example of Crystal posing alongside Jacquelyn Jablonski, a ‘thin’ supermodel rather new in the modeling world but has already modeled for Calvin Klein Jeans and Proenza Schouler. The images were taken by fashion photographer Terry Richardson and they are the latest in a series of campaigns for designers and magazines to enlist models that represent a variety of shapes and sizes.

These days Crystal Renn is a staunch campaigner against identikit catwalk models as she almost died from an eating disorder when she was younger and just beginning in the modeling world. She said,

“I’d love to see [the fashion industry] open their eyes to the variety of women. That variety is what’s beautiful.”

She doesn’t feel that ALL models need to be a size 16 but the small clothing at the fashion shows don’t fit girls and that’s why they starve themselves in order to fit into the clothes. But if designers make larger dresses they will fit all kinds of sizes and can be pinned and altered if needed for the fashion shows. The new issue of V Magazine will be out on January 14th.

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At just 23 years old, Crystal Renn is the most successful plus-sized model in the world. Keep in mind that she used to be anorexic and considering she is now 5′9 and a size 14 she is far from being considered ‘plus-sized,’ but in comparison to average models she is considerably larger. In a recent interview with Observer Magazine she explained that when she was 13 she was told that if she lost weight she would have a whole new life and be able to escape her then, current life. She immediately switched to a diet of chewing gum, lettuce, diet coke and diuretics and lived on this for years.

“To be a model – that was my ticket. I made the choice not to eat because that was what was expected of me to get my ticket. I was willing to risk my life to do that.”

Renn dropped down to 95 pounds with a hip measurement of only 33 inches. After starving herself for three years her body began to reject the regime and started putting on weight. Even though she was told to lose those extra pounds she made the conscious decision to keep the weight and she joined Ford modeling agency since it has a reputation for hiring plus-sized girls. Renn then began to eat regularly, allowing herself things like pizza and cheesecake, and she started to feel like a woman for the first time. She said,

“Each pound was a discovery. I liked it. I felt myself becoming more who I am. I had a cleavage suddenly. I started wearing heels, short dresses, colour. I was becoming the weight I naturally am. It felt like I was a woman finally.”

These days Renn has modeled for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Evans.

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Crystal Renn, once a super skinny model on the brink of collapse, has penned a new book Hungry. The now plus-size Ford model covers everything from health, to weight and even self-esteem issues in the memoir and hopes to shine a light on how people in the industry and in general perceive beauty.

“I’d like to see everyone take on the attitude that there are women of all different shapes and sizes as ‘the beauty ideal,’ and that it’s not one type or another. There are women who are naturally a size 2 — you can’t forget them, and that’s discrimination the other way,” Renn said in an interview. “All women bring something different to the table and we have to appreciate them all.”

Renn, who now works the pages of Vogue and Glamour as well as the runway with Jean Paul Gaultier, believes that there is a cycle to everything. From the Wall Street crash, to the housing market meltdown and now modeling. She says during the Victorian era the fuller figure was celebrated, while in the 1950s is was breasts, the 1980s shoulders and the 1990s the waifs. And now it seems it’s the return of the fuller figure.

Recent media coverage seems to agree. Just this week, we reported on Lizzie Miller’s triumph in Glamour magazine and the backlash from Kelly Clarkson’s Photoshopped Self cover shoot.