One of the planet’s most influential female fashion bloggers has slammed the use of curvaceous models on the catwalk.

Une Fille Comme Moi (A Girl Like Me) blogger Garance Dore, whose webpage garners some 50,000 hits every day, said that the recent trend towards plus models by leading fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton and Prada were little more than a gimmick.

The 35-year-old photographer turned fashion critic told reporters in Paris that the industry was being naive and presumptuous to assume that the catwalk was a place for differing body shapes, but did acknowledge that this may change in the future. Right now, it seems, Dore feels the best outfits should be worn on the best bodies.

Dore said that the concept should not be treated as a big deal, so to speak, but that UK Fashion Week had deliberately made a joke of the concept, aiming for shock value and publicity for being seen to be progressive in its approach.

Dore further said that the use of larger models by magazines to project a healthy body image was unconvincing, a reference to the French glossy Elle whose latest edition features the plus-sized Tara Lynn on the cover and in a 20-page luxury label collection. Also, the January edition of V magazine was a Size issue, with both Lynn and fellow buxom beauty Crystal Renn both featuring, heavily.

Somewhat controversially, Dore said that it was not necessarily a good thing to showcase plus sized models because they were not really physically healthy.

Tags: catwalk, Elle, Fashion, fashion blog, Garance Dore, models, plus-sized models, runway, Tara Lynn