What Being a Curvy Model Taught Me About Taking Up Space
Written by Chitra Soerdjbalie, Business Owner
Chitra Soerdjbalie is an international model and entrepreneur who bridges the worlds of fashion, event planning, and female leadership. She is passionate about helping others build confidence, create meaningful experiences, and lead with authenticity in both business and life.
Being a curvy model has taught me that taking up space is not about being the loudest person in the room or demanding attention. It is about allowing your personality, experience and strengths to come forward without apologising for them. In an industry that still struggles with consistent body diversity, I learned that fitting into one narrow image was never going to be my goal.
What does taking up space really mean?
When people hear the phrase “taking up space”, they may think about being bold, outspoken or highly visible. For me, it means something slightly different.
Taking up space is allowing your personality, qualities and experience to come forward in a way that is confident but still respectful. It is not about acting as though you know everything or making yourself more important than the people around you. It is about recognising that what you have learned and experienced may also have value for someone else.
That distinction matters to me. Confidence does not need to become arrogance, and presence does not need to become dominance. You can contribute, speak, lead and share what you know while still being open to learning from other people.
In that sense, taking up space is less about how much attention you receive and more about whether you are willing to bring your full contribution into the room.
When runway selection gave me hope
One of the first times I became particularly aware of my place as a curvy model was through runway selections.
Fashion still has a very specific image of what a model is expected to look like, so being selected as a curvy woman carried another meaning for me. It showed me that there were designers and brands willing to look beyond one traditional body type.
There were not suddenly endless opportunities, and I would never pretend that the industry had completely changed. But those selections gave me hope. They showed me that like-minded designers existed and that change does not always happen all at once.
Sometimes progress starts with individual people making different decisions. One designer chooses a different body type. One casting director widens their search. One brand decides that its audience deserves to see more than one image of beauty.
Those choices might appear small on their own, but together they help challenge an industry standard that has existed for decades.
Why I refused to change my body for more opportunities
Modelling has improved my relationship with my body rather than damaging it.
That may sound surprising because the modelling industry has a reputation for creating pressure around weight and appearance. But from the beginning, I made a personal decision that I was not going to let the industry convince me that I needed to lose weight simply to become more bookable.
My attitude has always been very straightforward: what you see is what you get.
Of course, I take care of myself professionally. Modelling is visual work, and presentation is part of the profession. But there is a difference between presenting the best version of yourself and believing you must fundamentally change your body before you deserve an opportunity.
I did not want my career to become a constant negotiation with myself: perhaps I will be good enough when I am smaller, perhaps I will be considered when my body changes, perhaps another project will come if I look more like someone else. That road has no obvious ending.
Instead, I learned to accept that some opportunities would simply not be meant for me. That does not automatically mean there is something wrong with me. Sometimes the brand, sample, casting or creative direction is looking for something different. That is part of modelling.
What I was not prepared to do was allow every rejection to become a reason to dislike my own body.
Curvy is not one size or one body type
One of the things I believe the fashion industry still gets wrong is treating “curvy” as though it refers to one fixed size or one recognisable shape.
Bodies do not work that way.
A woman can wear a relatively small clothing size and still have pronounced curves because of her proportions. Another woman can wear a larger size and carry her weight completely differently.
Height, waist-to-hip ratio, bust, bone structure and natural body shape all influence how clothing sits on a person.
Yet fashion categories can sometimes create the impression that there are only two bodies: the traditional straight-size model and one standardised version of the curvy model. Real women are far more diverse than that.
The language we use around sizing can be practical within an industry, but it becomes limiting when the category starts replacing the individual. Representation should not simply mean adding one different body and assuming everyone now feels represented.
There is no single curvy body, just as there is no single female body.
Why size representation should not be treated as a trend
What concerns me more is how quickly conversations about body diversity seem to come and go.
When size inclusivity receives renewed attention in the media, brands start talking about representation again. Different bodies appear in campaigns or on runways, and it can look as though the industry has moved forward. Then the attention shifts, and much of that visibility disappears with it.
Recent runway data suggests that this concern is justified. Vogue Business analysed 7,817 looks across 182 Fall/Winter 2026 shows and presentations and found that 97.6% were straight-size, while 2.1% were mid-size and only 0.3% were plus-size. Plus-size representation had returned to its lowest level since Vogue Business began tracking size diversity three years earlier.
That does not look like permanent change to me. Representation should not be something an industry temporarily embraces because the conversation is trending again. Different body types exist whether or not body diversity is currently fashionable. Consumers notice the difference.
Inclusive representation is also good business
There is a commercial argument here that I think brands sometimes underestimate. A brand is not only selling a product. It is also showing consumers who it imagines wearing that product.
If the same narrow type of person appears in every campaign, consumers who do not resemble that image can easily conclude that the brand was never thinking about them in the first place.
Vogue Business surveyed 687 consumers in the US and UK and found that 67% said they were more likely to buy from fashion brands that feature a variety of body sizes in their marketing. The same research found that 57% believed fashion brands do not adequately represent different body shapes and sizes.
For me, that makes intuitive sense. When people can imagine themselves in what you are selling, you widen the conversation around your brand. Inclusivity is therefore not only about doing something socially positive. It can also mean understanding your audience more accurately.
The world does not consist of one body type, so why should the image of the consumer?
Taking up space without becoming someone else
My experience in modelling has also reinforced something I wrote about previously in my Brainz article on visibility: being seen should never require you to become someone you are not.
There is a difference between developing yourself and reshaping yourself to gain acceptance. In professional environments, women can sometimes feel pressure to become louder, harder or more dominant because that is what confidence is supposed to look like. But taking up space does not have to mean copying somebody else’s personality or leadership style.
Brainz contributors have explored a similar idea in discussions about authentic female leadership: women can lose part of themselves when they feel they have to mould their behaviour around a narrow idea of what leadership should look like.
I believe the same applies to our bodies and our personalities. You can grow. You can learn. You can become more confident and improve your skills. But growth should help more of you come forward, not erase the parts of you that do not fit somebody else’s template.
What every woman already brings to the table
The biggest lesson I would take beyond modelling is very simple, even if it sounds almost cliché: every person is unique.
We hear that phrase so often that we can forget what it actually means. Every person brings a different combination of experiences, personality, abilities, perspectives and qualities into a room. Many of us are far more aware of what we lack than of what we already contribute.
We notice the person who speaks more confidently. The person with more experience. The woman with the body we wish we had. The person who has already achieved the goal we are still working towards. Comparison makes it very easy to overlook our own value.
But somebody else’s strength does not remove yours.
The point of taking up space is not to convince yourself that you are better than anyone else. It is to recognise that you bring something too. Sometimes what feels completely ordinary to you is exactly what another person can learn from.
Your next step: Identify what you bring
Before thinking about what you need to change, improve or achieve next, take a moment to identify what you already bring to the table.
Choose three qualities, experiences or strengths that have helped you get where you are today. They do not have to sound impressive, and they do not need anyone else’s approval. Then ask yourself whether you are actually allowing those qualities to be seen.
Taking up space does not require you to dominate the room, change your body or become a different personality. It means no longer assuming that your contribution matters less simply because it looks different from somebody else’s.
The fashion industry taught me that there will always be rooms built around a particular image. But it also taught me something more important: I do not have to reshape myself to deserve space in all of them.
Sometimes progress begins when we stop asking how to fit the existing image and start showing what else the image could look like.
Read more from Chitra Soerdjbalie
Chitra Soerdjbalie, Business Owner
Chitra Soerdjbalie is an international model, entrepreneur, and founder of Curated Moments by Chitra. After stepping onto her first international runway during Milan Fashion Week in 2022, she continued to build her presence in the fashion industry while championing confidence, representation, and authenticity. Through her work in fashion and event planning, she creates meaningful experiences that bring people together and leave a lasting impact. Passionate about female leadership and personal growth, Chitra inspires others to embrace their visibility, pursue their ambitions, and lead with confidence.
