"The Tank" was once anorexic
PUSSSYKATT
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Kate Dillon is a whole lot of things that fashion models aren't supposed to be.
She's well-read, down to earth and gutsy. Most of all, she's (MD+IT)not(MD-IT)
skinny.
At 24, Dillon is a successful plus-size model for the Wilhelmina agency.
Standing 5-foot-11, she weighs a comfortable 165 pounds and wears a size 14.
She gets a lot of pleasure out of calling herself 'the tank'' - a nickname
she's not afraid to share with the audiences of college women she'll soon be
lecturing.
'I'm kind of an organic gal,'' she says. '[Recently] I was hiking and trampling
all these sticks in the mud under my feet. I looked down at my legs and I
thought, 'What an incredible machine.' ''
It's a very different picture from the days, not so long ago, when her legs
were twig-like and she ate so little, she didn't get her period.
Dillon was, at 17, a hot 'straight-size'' model with a $75,000 contract to
model for Elite in Paris.
Weighing 120 pounds, she was also, by her own admission, an anorexic.
Her story is the tragically ubiquitous tale of a big-boned girl who was
tormented by her classmates and who shrank. In her case, she diminished to the
point that her angular body was welcomed by the world of fashion modeling.
At 16, she moved to Paris, and she graced the covers of Mademoiselle,
Australian Vogue and Italian Glamour. The photos made her look like a skinny
glamour queen; the reality was that Kate was seriously ill.
But hers, luckily, is a story with an atypical ending. This anorexic teen-ager
grew up to be a woman who revels in her big body. She is intent on spreading
the message that large is good - even in fashion.
Like Camryn Manheim of the ABC-TV drama series 'The Practice,'' who last fall
accepted her Emmy Award 'for all the fat girls,'' Dillon's actions are intended
to inspire the other 65 million American women of size 12 and up, many of whom
feel stigmatized and unattractive because the covers on today's magazines tell
them that to be a megababe, you've got to look like Kate Moss.
So far, Dillon has waged her one-woman campaign in compelling images, posing in
everything from lingerie to evening gowns. This month she will give voice to
her message when she travels to Harvard University to talk about her battle
with her own body. And in March she will return to her high school in
California to tell the students, 'Don't do what I did.''
That won't be easy, says Dillon's best friend, Vida Johnson, now a second-year
law school student. 'She's going to be looking into the faces of a lot of girls
a lot like her at that time.''
Dillon's family moved to California from Maryland when she was 10. Talking in
Wilhelmina's offices in Manhattan, she explains: 'I just didn't look like other
Californians. I had brown hair and freckles.''
Things didn't really get bad until seventh grade. One day, when she was riding
in the school bus, she heard - and saw in a rear-view mirror - a group of rowdy
boys in the back, chanting her new nickname: 'Overweight Kate.''
She wanted to disappear. And, soon, she found a way to vanish.
Dillon remembers watching a made-for-TV movie meant to reveal the dangers of
anorexia. But, to her, anorexia didn't look frightening. 'I saw this anorexic
girl as very appealing. She was beautiful and sweet. I had found a solution.
And I worked at it with a kind of ferocity.''
The 'solution'' consisted of weighing herself three times a day and barely
picking at food while exercising with an intensity 'that would have made the
Navy Seals proud.''
In one year, she lost 30 pounds and grew four inches. She was skinny and
popular. 'What really messed me up,'' recalls Dillon, 'is that what I was doing
was wrong, but it worked.''
By the time Dillon was 16, she said, 'People would tell me I looked too skinny.
But I liked the feeling of my hipbones sticking out further than my body.''
Amd she was rewarded for being too thin. A photographer saw her in a coffee bar
and asked to take some shots. She agreed. Before long, she had a portfolio and
a modeling contract.
A good student, she had been accepted to the University of California at
Berkeley. But she was also handed the chance to model in Paris, and she took
it.
There, she worked harder and ate even less. She worked seven days a week and
lived on coffee and diet drinks. At night she would sit on the Champs Elysees,
smoke, and fantasize about her abandoned dream of being a writer. 'I thought,
'Look at who you are, who you've become.' ''
Her booker at the time, Maryann Puglisi, an agent at Elite, recalled what it
was like. 'She climbed very fast,'' she says. 'But she had to struggle every
day of her life to keep her weight down. It was mind boggling for her and she
was just a kid.''
One day, after a grueling runway show, an art director came up to her and told
her how great she looked. 'And all I could think was that I hadn't eaten in two
days. I felt so sick,'' she says. 'I thought I had hepatitis.''
Spiraling into near physical collapse, Dillon woke up one day and decided to
stop modeling. She moved to New York and looked for help from a nutritionist
who got her to eat again. She responded like a boomerang and began overeating.
She was crippled by self-doubts and endured panic attacks. She enrolled at
Hunter College, but dropped out.
Yet, inside, the real Kate - strong and independent - was waiting to be reborn.
She had an inspiration. She wouldn't revert to dieting. She would tackle
modeling again, but this time as her real self - big and gorgeous, eating
sensibly. 'It was clear to me that this was my destiny - to come back to the
business and come back shining.''
Today, Dillon is working every day and loving it. She may not be earning the
kind of money she did before, but she's been on the cover of Mode and she's
currently in negotiations to represent a major cosmetics line.
'My message is to be healthy, and don't freak out if your healthy weight isn't
the weight you want to be. Just look at me now - look at how much better I
am.''