PFW Model Jennifer Atilémile Wants Us To Reject Beauty Standards And Take Up Space

Jennifer Atilémile is one of Australia's most successful curve models. It's tough to condense her career into a short paragraph, but the model has starred in campaigns for brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Clarins, became Victoria's Secret's first Australian curve model, and walked for designers Deveaux, Tibi and more. However, she's noticed a significant change in the fashion industry — one she's fighting against. During her time at Paris Fashion Week in 2025, Atilémile was struck by the surge of skinny bodies, a trend that was highlighted by #SkinnyTok earlier that year. "We still see skinny as equating to being healthy. And I think that needs to change, because I see everyone getting so thin... last year I was at Paris Fashion Week, and I could visibly see people's clavicles and ribcages on the runway, and hip bones," she tells Refinery29 Australia. "People talk about normalising or glorifying obesity when we talk about plus size modelling, but I also think we should not be glorifying starvation either, there are two extremes... being healthy, that is the ultimate goal."

Choosing her words carefully, the curve model links the current trend in beauty standards to the politics of the moment. "I think that the traditional beauty standard is kind of a sham... especially what's coming out now with the Epstein files, the traditional beauty standard is rooted in something very, very deeply disturbing. It's skinny, white, and kind of infantile. And we are not children anymore, we're women, and women come in all shapes and sizes, all colours," the model says. Atilémile also explains that the traditional beauty standard and the patriarchy are so deeply intertwined, that it becomes another way of controlling women and taking away our ability to fight the system. As Jessica DiFino wrote for Teen Vogue, Western beauty standards are "tools of oppression that reinforce sexism, racism, colourism, classism, ableism, and gender norms. They are built into our societies and embedded into our brains. They contribute to anxiety, depression, dysmorphia, eating disorders, self-harm, and low self-esteem."

Instead of trying to chase unattainable beauty standards — for which the goal posts move constantly, by the way — Atilémile wants women to take up space. "With this regression to so many standards and taking away of [women's] rights, [or] just ways of thinking, we're shrinking ourselves, and we're shrinking our brains, and we're shrinking our ability to stand up for things that really, truly matter," she declares. "Part of embracing size and shape and body positivity is also embracing taking up space and being confident, being loud, and being in rooms and speaking up. I think it's just so important to reject the beauty standard and to take up space."

Atilémile has felt the shift in the fashion industry anecdotally, noting she's had less work than usual as a curve model. "I'm Australia's most successful curve model at the moment, and I feel like [the] rollback on body diversity is really, I feel it. Like, I'm not working as much," she says. "I think it's really important to keep showing up as myself, because you know, my body is not going anywhere. This is my body. This is who I am... I think visibility is more important now than ever, because everyone seems to be rolling back their diversity, their body positivity, everything."

Her newest campaign with Bonds aims to tackle just that, partnering with models Elle MacPherson and Shanina Shaik. Together, the trio represent different sizes, ages and ethnicities, promoting the new Bases Flex line of underwear. For Atilémile, she was surprised and proud that her campaign photographs weren't retouched. "I don't think there was any retouching in the campaign. So to be able to be featured as I am, and hopefully inspire other women to see themselves represented and to love themselves as they are too, I think is just really important," she says. "Sometimes I'll see myself in an ad campaign, or on the internet, and I'm like... I wish they didn't smooth out my thighs, because I do have cellulite, and I do have rolls, and I do have all these things that if I don't then see myself reflected, then I too have a warped image of my body."

The curve model adds that, as women, we are often bombarded with messaging that we're not good enough, and there's always something to change or improve. "We've been told we have to look a certain way and wear certain clothing, and feel like it has to look flattering. And flattering, I think, is another word for changing how you look and who you are, or looking slimmer," Atilémile says. Comfort-first fashion is one of her favourite things (you can't go wrong with a well-tailored pair of jeans and a white tee, she says), and the Flex range combines comfort and fashion with ease.

It's campaigns like this that continue to give the activist hope, and besides, without hope, what do we have left? She's determined to continue to break down barriers in the modelling and beauty industries, and can see a world where there are more bodies embraced and celebrated. "I think we just need to keep fighting the good fight and fight for change. We're having a little blip in fashion, and I think we're going to realise really soon that the blip was wrong. And I think it's all tied to you know, what's happening politically as well... the turn to conservatism," the model says.

"Having hope for the plus size and curve industry is really important because we have kind of been forgotten about, and we are still here, and we are still needing representation for all people and all bodies."