Back in 2015, Charli Howard decided to set fire to her modelling profession.
After six years working as an expert model – and a decade suffering with eating disorders – she was told by her agency that she was ‘too big’ to satisfy fashion industry standards.
She was a size six on the time, spending five hours a day within the gym to shed weight and eating cotton wool for lunch. ‘I just didn’t need to do any of it any more,’ she says.
So she poured her feelings right into a Facebook post: ‘The more you force us to shed weight and be small, the more designers must make clothes to suit our sizes, and the more young girls are being made ailing,’ she wrote. ‘It’s not a picture I decide to represent.’ She ended with: ‘I’m off to Nando’s.’
Her friends told her she would never work again. But Howard was immediately snapped up by an American agency, spent five years in New York, and has posed for everybody from Agent Provocateur to Spanx.
‘I actually enjoy modelling now, because I can do it at the scale I’m at and be the person I’m,’ she says. At 33, she has also written two highly acclaimed books including a memoir about growing up with obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, bulimia and anorexia; hosted a BBC podcast, and launched sustainable beauty brand Squish.
She can be the style world’s pre-eminent truth-teller. Her Instagram posts include close-up images of her cellulite and unfiltered takes on all features of the style industry, from sustainability to the body positivity movement. She prefers the term ‘body neutrality’, arguing that it’s ‘unnatural’ to feel positive about your body on a regular basis.
‘It’s more about the concept your body isn’t on the forefront of every little thing – you’re greater than just the best way that you simply look.
That’s what I are likely to concentrate on now.’
We’re talking within the upstairs bar of Langan’s in Mayfair following the YOU photoshoot. She’s dressed down in an easy sweatshirt but still has on the vampish eye make-up from the shoot (she loves a lash lift) and so resembles a creature caught between two worlds: ‘I either appear like an absolute hobo in my hoodies or I’m dolled as much as the nines,’ she laughs.
It’s immediately clear why Howard has won the trust of so many ladies, with 357k followers on Instagram. She’s warm, funny and gets straight to the purpose on any given subject – corresponding to the unwelcome return of ‘size zero’ models to catwalks.
‘A whole lot of people view fashion as this dream world nevertheless it’s not. It’s an influential trillion-dollar industry. And we’re regressing relating to the scale thing.’
I’ll admit I picked up her 2019 memoir, Misfitpurely for research purposes – but then I couldn’t put it down. It’s a terrific insight into each the cruelties of noughties culture (this was the era of maximum makeover shows and magazines highlighting the cellulite on female celebrities) and the way mental-health complexes take hold.
Howard’s childhood was unusual: her father was within the Royal Navy and the family moved from country to country every couple of years, making it hard for her to form secure friendships.
After spells in Germany and Belgium, the family eventually found the cash to send her to a boarding school in Wales (she will be able to’t say which one for legal reasons). Deeply lonely, she internalised the messages of the broader culture: if she may very well be thin, she reasoned, she can be accepted. ‘The idea of my book was to point out how eating disorders develop, because they don’t just come out of nowhere,’ she says. ‘It’s not an arrogance thing.
It’s actually because you’ve got plenty of unhealed trauma, or feelings that you simply don’t need to feel, or emotions you don’t need to take care of.’
When she looked within the mirror during her teenage years, she didn’t just see fat; she saw failure. Modelling feels like absolutely the last profession for somebody with those feelings. Yet, somewhere in her mind, she was convinced that if she became a model, she can be accepted.
It is, she has since realised, an incredibly common experience. ‘I used to be talking to a woman yesterday, actually, whose agency had sent her to weight-loss camp. I used to be, like, what? I mean this girl is a size 6-8, which is below the national average size. It’s tousled. I do think there must be some kind of investigation as [this industry has] tousled so many individuals. Not just models but women and girls on the whole who tried to emulate that.’
If anything, the landscape for teenage girls has worsened since she was that age. She was recently invited to Parliament to debate deepfake porn. ‘We heard from all these women who’re having their faces taken without their consent and placed on naked bodies in porn. So it’s like digital rape. It’s terrifying that that is even a thing.’
Howard reckons that it was social media that ‘saved’ her and allowed her to take control of her own story. Still, there are various moments in Misfit through which she says how thankful she is that smartphones weren’t around when she was a youngster.
‘God, it should be so hard now to be a woman,’ she says. ‘We hear so many stories of ladies sending nudes to boys which can be then put up on the web.
There’s this have to continuously look good and to place filters on yourself, to have a really Kardashian-like body shape.’
For all that she has taken command of her own profession, Howard stresses that complex mental-health issues don’t simply disappear. In February, she posted concerning the return of her eating disorders during an ‘incredibly stressful’ period of her life two years ago.
This was triggered by the ‘self-disgust’ she felt after a painful episode through which she claims an ex-partner siphoned off ‘tens of 1000’s of kilos’ from her checking account over the course of their relationship. He lived in an expensive flat and gave every appearance of being financially independent. It only later emerged that he couldn’t afford the life-style he projected.
‘He was very clever, very manipulative,’ she says. ‘I attempt to tell women: just be really careful about the way you’re spending your money. Have a separate checking account if you happen to can. I believe it’s essential that ladies have their very own money. It’s really necessary to me because it will possibly be a type of abuse – financial abuse.’
She feels now that she learned a useful lesson from it. ‘I struggled for some time, but I’ve turned it into something positive. I do consider things occur for a reason, whatever that reason is, and I’m now in a a lot better place due to it.’ It has made her all of the more proud that she has earned her own way in life.
She plans to sell her beauty brand Squish (although she doesn’t know who to yet) and says she won’t start one other one as ‘the world doesn’t need any more beauty brands’. She can be taking an acting course – she desires to be on British TV or a Netflix show.
There can be a 3rd book within the works, inspired by her experiences with relationships – which feels like the one thing in her life that isn’t going so well. When I ask if she’s signed as much as dating apps, she makes a noise of maximum pain. ‘Urrgh! I just want to satisfy someone on the street. Honestly, I wish people would simply come over and check with me.’
She is single and on the apps, she confirms, and is finding the experience demoralising and ‘oversexualised. I’ve had guys literally on the primary date attempt to guess my boob size or ask me what my kinks are. It’s like: “I haven’t had f***ing dessert yet!”’ she laughs. ‘We’ve lost that ability to flirt or construct connections. It’s crazy. So that’s what I’m scuffling with for the time being.’
It is just not that she objects to the concept of casual hook-ups. It’s the dearth of romance. She hates the best way dating apps reduce the complex business of human attraction to a transaction. ‘We’re fed this Sex and the City idea that ladies can have casual relationships and it’s advantageous, you’ll be able to sleep with whoever you would like and it doesn’t must mean anything.
But dating nowadays may be very geared towards men. Why? You’ve got all these individuals who aren’t communicating. Men? The minute that they become bored with someone, they’ll just jump to a different one.
‘If you take a look at the studies into happiness, the hot button is knowing once you’ve got enough. The problem with dating apps, social media, consumerism – every little thing! – is that you simply never have enough. There’s all the time something higher not far away.’
This is the inconceivable query. When do you have to be content with what you’ve gotten? And when do you have to go for more. My strong sense is that Charli Howard is a go-for-more person. ‘I all the time make things occur. I’m very tenacious,’ she says. ‘I don’t need to get up sooner or later and think: “I wish I’d worn that, I wish I’d done that, I wish I’d said that.” Life’s for living now. You’ve got to simply do it!’
Get the look: Here’s how make-up artist Caroline Barnes created Charli’s sophisticated modern glamour
Flawless skin
I used Monika Blunder Beauty Cover, which is a concealer and foundation in a single. I buffed it in to offer the right demi-matt coverage.
Bold brows
Charli’s brows are naturally strong looking, so to avoid overpowering her eyes by adding more density to them I used, very sparingly, Blink Brow Bar Eyebrow Pen (£23, bbb-london.com). It has three ultra-fine suggestions and every stroke mimics a hair to create a natural finish. Then I set her brows with Got2be 2 in 1 Gel for Brows & Edges (£5.50, boots.com).
Luxurious lashes
To counter Charli’s daring eyebrows and red lips I kept the lashes looking fluffy and soft with Lisa Eldridge Kitten Lash Mascara, which is beautiful and lightweight. It defines the lashes without overloading them, so that they still look feminine.
For extra oomph, I added Lashify false lashes on the outer corners. They sit underneath your individual lashes, slightly than on top of them, so your eyes are kept wide and open.
Armani Beauty Lip Power Matte in 603, £36, boots.com
Power lips
I wanted a creamy red lipstick that wasn’t too shiny – as these can bleed – and opted for Armani Beauty Lip Power Matte in 603, which has a ravishing texture that stains the lips, but keeps them hydrated.
I then perfected her lip shape, making it barely fuller, using the Hourglass Shape & Sculpt Lip Liner in Incite.
Glamour nails
Manicurist Georgia Hart updated the classic French look with a scarlet tip (for a daring red see right) against a neutral nail varnish for a contemporary tackle vampy nails.
Shot at Upstairs at Langan’s, Mayfair, London. Charli Howard is the face of GHD Chronos.
Fashion director: Sophie Dearden.
Picture director: Ester Malloy.
Fashion Assistant: Jessica Carroll.
Make-up: Caroline Barnes at The Wall Group.
Hair: Abigail Constanza using GHD.
Manicurist: Georgia Hart at Stella Creative Artists