Heidi Klum says she refused to diet when designers told her she wasn’t skinny enough

‘In Paris they would solemnly say, “There are pills you can take,”’ recalled supermodel

Heidi Klum has reflected on refusing to diet during her early career when designers and casting directors deemed her not skinny enough.

The 51-year-old model who rose to fame on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1998 and as the first German model to become Victoria’s Secret Angel, has reflected on the pressures to be super skinny during the “heroin chic” modelling era in the Nineties.

Klum recalled being aged 20 and overhearing designers talking about her weight at castings.

“I’d go to the modelling agencies when I started and there would be a scale and they would measure and weigh me. In Paris they would solemnly say, ‘There are pills you can take,’” she told The Times.

However, the model said she never “bought into it” because she had competed in local modelling contests in Germany where the public had voted for her.

“I thought I won my modelling contest without being super skinny. People at home had voted for me, so maybe ordinary people didn’t want what they called ‘heroin chic’,” she said.

Klum walking for Victoria’s Secret, 2002 (Getty Images)

Klum’s refusal to conform to the industry’s toxic standards meant she was often rejected when she auditioned for catwalk jobs during fashion weeks.

“I went for endless castings. Only a few asked me to try on their sample clothes and I just didn’t fit into them. I was 90-60-90 [35-24-35]. The clothes would get stuck on my breasts or my hips,” she said.

That didn’t stop her from developing a lucrative career as a catalogue model, which eventually saw her invited onto catwalks.

“I bought my first apartment, my second apartment, a house for my parents, my brother and my grandmother. I was making a great living working 200 days a year, but I also love to create. I wanted to be seen as a canvas and used imaginatively rather than wear the same boring outfits for every shoot.”

Klum’s views on weight contradicted some of her colleagues who also worked in the Nineties, like Kate Moss, who claimed her mantra was “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” during a 2009 interview with WWD.

Klum photographed in 2002 (Getty Images)

Moss was then accused of encouraging eating disorders, but in 2018, she distanced herself from the sentiment, saying it was more a “jingle” said among her friends.

Klum rose to the ranks of being one of the first supermodels when she became a Sports Illustrated cover star, with her issue selling 20 million copies.

“The magazine was on the stands, at the dentist, everywhere. Overnight, I’d walk down the street and people would swivel. Men had tattoos of me on them. It was crazy,” she said.

“At the same time I became a Victoria’s Secret Angel. The attention became insane, but I wasn’t going to complain.”