When Jean Paul Gaultier presented his 30th anniversary collection in Paris last fall, he sent out a zaftig model in a skimpy black peignoir and garters.

The audience wasn’t sure how to react.

Was the veteran designer supporting full-figured women by featuring the size-20 model? (Highly unlikely, since the rest of his show featured stick-figure models, and he doesn’t design a plus-size line.)

Or was he simply poking fun at efforts to ban skeletal models from the runway? No one knew for sure, and Gaultier wasn’t saying.

Voluptuous models may be getting the last laugh.

In recent years, teenage mannequins with hollow cheeks, toothpick arms and sunken collarbones have dominated runways. But now designers may be ready — or forced — to abandon the skinny minis for noticeably curvier models who look like they occasionally wolf down a cheeseburger and fries.

Houston Chronicle