Fashion Nova’s ‘body positive’ campaign gets backlash — for lacking body diversity

A recent Fashion Nova campaign is facing backlash for lacking body diversity, despite being billed as body-positive.

On Instagram, the fast fashion company touted its “body positivity campaigns,” which feature models in sizes ranging from extra small to 1X, for “going viral” — but likely not for the reason they hoped.

The brand’s followers slammed the adverts for only including models with flat stomachs and hourglass figures while criticizing the sizes medium and extra-large for looking nearly identical.

“Is the body positivity in the room with us?” quipped one user.

“Wow. Body positivity with everyone that’s the same body type,” another wrote sarcastically.

“Their body positivity campaign has about the same levels of thoughtfulness and quality as their clothing,” one person snarked.

“Body positivity but showing nothing but athletic types and worked on bodies is actually insane,” scolded someone else.

“I need to see mom bods, stretch marks, little stomach,” said a user, volunteering to be a model.

“Can you find models with hip dips or without BBLs too,” requested one person, noting how “hard” it is to imagine herself in clothing when none of the models are representative of her body type. “Most bodys [sic] do not have a coke bottle shape.”

“We need to see bigger bellies,” demanded another. “Not everyone has those super flat stomachs.”

In the US, the average clothing size for women is about a size 14, or a Fashion Nova 1X, which is considered “plus size” in the fashion industry which has been pushing for more size inclusivity in garments and on runways.

In recent years, Victoria’s Secret only began featuring curvier models, while designer Victoria Beckham finally expanded the size range in her namesake label to include larger sizes.

Fashion Nova, however, is no stranger to controversy. In 2022, the label was fined $4.2 million by the Federal Trade Commission after being accused of suppressing negative reviews of items and alleging blocking customer reviews that were less than four stars.