Filippa Hamilton comes out fighting in Joachim Muller Ruchholtz’s editorial ‘W La Giacca’, styled by Giulia Bassi for Amica’s January issue. We share a second set of images from the same issue that are part of an interview with the model who was famously fired from Ralph Lauren in 2009 for being too fat.

The Swedish-French Hamilton didn’t go running to Twitter and broadcast her woes far and wide throughout the fashion industry. But when her story finally came to light after Ralph Lauren released extraordinaryly twisted Photoshopped images of the model in its Japan ads, that Filippa Hamilton stepped up to the plate and led an international conversation about being the fat girl size 4 in a size 0 fashion world.

We can’t say that Filippa Hamilton’s career rebounded after the Ralph Lauren debacle. But her ‘fierceness’ resulting —  not from an extraordinary ability to scowl —  but her composed, articulate response to being the subject of intense controversy brought her the respect of many people including myself. 

In the always agitated discussion of body image and unusually low BMI models, Filippa Hamilton’s voice was steady in a fashion similar to Crystal Renn’s. Any time we see Filippa in print, we say bravo! Her body led many of us to take a firm stance on the patriarchal nature of the fashion industry as it expresses itself in today’s preference for boy bodies and desexualized women. Unfortunately, Filippa Hamilton was sexy with curves.

At the end of this editorial sequence is Filippa’s 2009 story and the major essays from me that she inspired. ~ Anne