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Project Runway’s Liris Crosse is addressing online criticism after the curve model gave her candid thoughts on what she said was an unflattering garment.
“‘Your [sic] a model, you need to keep your mouth shut and walk,’ how about you keep your mouth shut because you can’t even write proper English,” Liris, 47, quipped in a Friday, August 28, Instagram video, after a commenter used the incorrect form of “you’re” in their online diss. “I got a few comments like these, a lot from men, [that were] misogynistic.”
She continued, “It’s people like this are the main reasons why models have gone through physically, financial and sexual abuse within our industry because models feel like they can’t have a voice.”
Liris was paired with designer Bryan Barrientos on a recent Project Runway episode earlier this month, in which he crafted a halter gown out of orange cords for the season 22 unconventional materials challenge. After Liris’ first fitting, she outright questioned whether the DIY garment would flatter her body type.
“I put it on, and I’m looking at it like, ‘I don’t know about this,’” Liris said in a Monday, August 24, social media video, addressing the dress dilemma. “It is a rule of mine [that] I do not offer advice to a designer unless they ask or unless it feels like it is really going to put me in a very uncomfortable situation or a bad light.”
Liris added at the time, “I’m pretty much one of the most well-known models in Project Runway history. I am known for my prowess on the runway, and I’m thankful for that, and I love the fans for that, so it just felt thoughtless. It felt like he just had no idea. It felt careless, it felt lazy, and my spirit, in that moment, was broken.”
Liris, who was seen crying over fears that she was “letting plus-sized women down,” has since received an onslaught of criticism for speaking up in the first place.
“People forget that models are humans. We’re human beings. … We’re actually real humans, so people who try to tell me to ‘shut up and walk,’ you have no compassion,” she stated on Friday. “The problem is society has been socialized to think that models do not have a voice and we should take whatever is given to us [and] whatever circumstances we’re put in, we should deal because we’re ‘so privileged because we’re models or because we’re pretty people.’ No, this model right here [is] gonna speak her truth.”
Project Runway airs on Freeform Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET.
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