Slink Magazine, Dedicated to Women Size 10 and Up, Launches

By Emily Gyben 04/09/12 at 09:21 AM

The 5th issue of Slink.

The measurements of the models that fill the pages of our favorite glossies are a perpetually hot-button issue.

At this point, one would hope that readers know that models' thin bodies are not the norm—that they’re not the same creatures as so-called “real” women. But why not have a magazine for real women?

Rivkie Baum has done just that, launching Slink, a U.K.-based magazine dedicated to women size 14 and up (that’s 10 and up in American sizes). The former fashion design student (and plus-size woman herself) left that field of business after being frustrated with the limited sizes even at the pattern-cutting level. Typical magazines, she told the Daily Mail, were also a problem.

“I read all of them,” she told the Mail. “I loved the images and really wanted to fit in. But there was nothing for young women who are bigger. The only answer was for me to get smaller."

Slink launched online last year, and its first print issue—with former America’s Next Top Model winner Whitney Thompson on the cover—is available now. It will be published bi-monthly.

The magazine has banned straight-size models from appearing in its pages, as well as diet stories and ads for plastic surgery. And since Baum can’t use runway images because of the models, she also commissioned a fashion illustrator to reimagine straight-from-the-catwalk looks on a fuller figure.

Baum describes her fashion magazine as aspirational, and will cover the same fashion that the Vogues and Glamours of the world cover—right down to lingerie and bikini shoots.

“But we will not run a cover line that says: ‘How to get that bikini body,’” Baum said. “Over my big, beautiful body.”