Model Ulrikke Hoyer and casting director Ashley Brokaw have responded to the controversy surrounding Hoyer being dropped from a Louis Vuitton show.
The Danish model took to social media on Wednesday 17 May to claim she was dropped from the French luxury brand’s show for being “too big”.
The model - who was due to walk for Louis Vuitton’s cruise show in Japan on Sunday 14 May - posted on Facebook and Instagram a description of her ordeal.
Hoyer claims in her Instagram post that she was told by casting agents to “drink only water for the next 24 hours” before a fitting - due to her “bloated face” and “a very bloated stomach” - despite being a “size 34-36”.
But the fitting never happened and Hoyer was sent back home.
After returning from Japan, Hoyer posted to her personal Facebook page on Wednesday 17 May.
“I just returned from Tokyo in Japan, where Louis Vuitton held a beautiful cruise show in Kyoto, I just never made it to Kyoto because I was cancelled for the show due to being ‘too big’. I’m a size 34-36,” Hoyer said.
“Just before 12am my fitting got rescheduled to an unknown time later that day. It didn’t happen because at 7pm my mother agent from Denmark called me to tell me the sad news that Louis Vuitton had chosen to cancel me from the show - without the refitting - and that I was going to be sent back home.”
The 20-year-old model - who has previously walked for Louis Vuitton’s spring 2017 show, and other household names such as Chloe, Stella McCartney and Alexandre Vauthier - had been looking forward to the opportunity.
“What should have been a truly amazing and unique experience ended up being a very humiliating experience,” she said.
Hoyer wanted to make it clear with her post that she strongly believes changes need to be made regarding how models are treated.
“This is not about me being cancelled from a show, I’ve tried that before (all girls on my level have) you win some, and you lose some - that’s the game.
“But I cannot accept the ‘normality’ in the behaviour of people like this. They find pleasure in power over young girls and will go to the extreme to force an eating disorder on you.
Hoyer noted that if she had been younger the ordeal would have been far worse.
“I am glad I am 20 and not a 15-year-old girl, who is new to this and unsure about herself, because I have no doubt that I would then have ended up very sick, and scarred long into my adult life.”
Both Hoyer and casting director Ashley Brokaw - who also casts models for Prada - spoke to ‘Business of Fashion’ to shed some light on the situation on 19 May.
Brokaw said he thought it was a “misunderstanding” and stated Louis Vuitton had made a fur coat for Hoyer to wear in Paris and had confirmed her to walk the runway.
However, Brokaw claims the outfit no longer fitted Hoyer when she arrived in Japan for a fitting - and this led to her not walking the runway.
“Once we were in Tokyo we were very limited by what we could do,” he said.
“We didn’t have the atelier to remake anything and we didn’t have a lot of other options to try on her, although we did try some other things on her and nothing quite worked. So it was a situation that was devastating all round.”
Brokaw also said that he did not tell Hoyer she could only drink water and eat nothing before the show.
But Hoyer is adamant that she fitted in the outfit picked out for her and she said she believes the industry has an unhealthy way of viewing size.
“If a girl comes into a fitting for a size zero dress and she’s 0.5cm too big or whatever, she will always be the problem. The dress will never be the problem,” Hoyer said.
“The other way around, if a girl comes in and a size zero dress is too big for her, they will make a new dress or alter the dress for her. I think it’s crazy and it’s scary.”
HuffPost UK reached out to Louis Vuitton who declined to comment.