The term 'Big is Beautiful' is not one that is often used in the same sentence as high fashion runway models. Since the tragic deaths of Luisel Ramos, Anna Carolina Reston and Hila Elmalich, who starved themselves in their bid to forge a career as supermodels, we have been waiting for the 'size zero tide' to turn in the fashion industry. It would appear that the backlash has begun and it seems as though the recession, of all things, could be the main reason behind this shift in attitude. 'In periods when we are impoverished, as now, there is a vogue for volumptio women', said Stephen Bayley, author of 'Women as Design'.

Designers would also appear to welcome this change if the views of the likes of Roland Mouret and Antonio Berardi, are anything to go by. Mouret told the Guardian, 'back in the Eighties, when supermodels were several sizes larger than top models today, the clothes worked on bigger bodies.... and were curve-enhancing'. Berardi has also confessed that he doesn't 'want all those girls with pale skin who look the same. My family is Italian. I am inspired by a womanly aesthetic'. A good case in point is Lara Stone, one of the most successful girls out there, who has booked a record amount of work in recent months and has even added Prada to her ever growing CV.

Does this prove that there is a place for the curvier model in the fashion industry?