Candice Huffine on Elle Cover: ‘Size Is Not an Indication of What Is Possible’

While her name might not be as household as Kendall Jenner or Bella and Gigi Hadid, with 16 years in the fashion industry under her belt, Candice Huffine has had a hugely successful career in modeling longer than all three of those new supers combined. But despite being a high fashion staple, her new cover for Elle magazine marks the first time Huffine has landed the honor of fronting an issue in America, marking a major milestone for curvy models everywhere as well as a serious shift for the industry at large. And it’s a topic she wasn’t afraid to address at length in her interview with the magazine.

The European editorial mainstay remarked upon seeing her first American cover, “I’ve been a model for a very long time and these are the dreams I had from the very beginning, so it’s extremely exciting and I’m proud. I’m speechless. I’m also very validated in knowing that it’s possible, I did it and I’m doing it, and it’s not over for me.” As a matter of fact, it seems her career is actually poised to be hotter than ever as the door begins to open for her and fellow models who share her body type.

She explains, “I hope, in a way, I’m lifting a weight off their shoulders and that previous stresses that they had about their body or thinking that their body will hold them back from goals that they have in their life. I hope that this cover is a symbol. I hope this shatters that notion for them. And that they know that they can become anything that they want and they can have anything they want in this life. And their size is not an indication of what is possible for them.”

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She also discusses how much had to change in the industry from when she first started in order for something this momentous to occur. “I didn’t know that I was a size that wasn’t right for the fashion industry. I wasn’t aware that there was one kind of ideal shape. It shook me in the beginning,” she says. But much like Elizabeth Warren, nevertheless, she persisted. “There was no home for me in the beginning [when I was] signed as a plus model,” she explains, but now, “We can open a magazine and see a body like mine or Ashley Graham’s or see just a wide variety of women. And I think that is the biggest telltale sign of the change and is the most rewarding feeling. I know that I made a mark in that. And I just know that the best is even still yet to come.”