‘I was tiny but there was a constant thing of “I’m too big”’: Ruth Crilly on the ugly side of modelling

In her book How Not To Be A Supermodel , Ruth Crilly recalls a moment she went to the office of her Japanese modelling agency. They asked for her to pose for Polaroids, for what she thought was a sports company job. The agency boss put her in too-small shorts (for 11-year-olds), and then bemoaned the fact that Crilly’s ‘fat’ was ‘spilling out’ over her waistband.

The pictures were sent back to her agency in the UK as evidence that Crilly’s body measurements were bigger than the ones on her contract, and how she had put on weight..