Now the male models are losing weight to achieve the new boy body ideal: skinny, pale, feminine.
David Sciola was too big for Paris. Weighing just 76 kilograms with a 32-inch waist (81cm), the 188cm-tall model tipped the scales in the French fashion capital.
Working abroad last year, he lost 6kg to strut the catwalks of Milan, but even that was not skinny enough for the Parisian scene - where lean is the new mean.
"In Milan, I trimmed down to about 76kg so I would fit the clothes. I am 6'2", so for me I would say that's underweight," he says. "Paris tends to be even skinnier than Milan. You've got designers like Dior who always go for anaemic, 17-year-old bodies.
"In Milan, I was staying with a guy who modelled for Dior. He was really skinny: he looked like he was going to die. He had been put on the front page of Le Monde for an article about skinny models and male eating disorders. But he assured me it was all totally natural."
As Sciola's size has diminished, so his catwalk stocks have climbed. The 23-year-old model and University of Melbourne media student says that three years ago he looked like a "meat head", weighing a relatively beefy 94kg with a 33-inch waist (83cm) and 42-inch chest (106cm) bulging from weight training.
"I went into Cameron's Models and they said you've got a good look, but you've got to lose weight," he says.
"I thought they'd probably like that big-body look and I would get a lot of work, but gradually I found out they don't go for buff guys."
