Dallas actress and SMU student Nancy Upton was not pleased with American Apparel’s call for plus-size models. The company, which has a history of what some might call “sleazy” behavior, held an online contest called “The Next BIG Thing” (the emphasis is theirs), looking for “booty-ful” women “XL-ent” enough to model a new line of size 12-14 clothing. While plenty of women submitted standard model-type shots of themselves (think hands on hips, hair blowing in the breeze), Upton sent in photos of herself posing provocatively with various foods. The pictures, taken by Dallas photographer Shannon Skloss, show Upton in her underwear, pouring chocolate syrup and ranch dressing on herself. Others show Upton eating fried chicken in a pool, naked with only a cherry pie, and laying on a dining room table with an apple in her mouth. (You can see the photos here.)
It was done as a protest, Upton has explained on the blog she started and in several interviews. Her cause was taken up by feminist sites like Jezebel.com and blasted around the internets. Now the contest is over, and guess who got the most votes… But in a recent Q&A, Upton says she doesn’t expect to hear from the company anytime soon:
“I figured I’d do it, and my friends on Facebook would think it was funny and they’d repost it, and people who saw it on the Internet would troll it, and be like, ‘She’s horrifyingly fat and weird!’ But I didn’t expect it to become international news. That’s pretty surprising.”
