As Couture week wraps up in Paris, the fashion world does some literal navel-gazing… Should the size and weights of models be legislated like professional athletes?
Since last August, when Uruguyan model Luisel Ramos died on a catwalk of heart failure brought on by anorexia, fashionistas worldwide have been debating the logic of size zero models. This week, the British Fashion Council recommended to designers to not use obviously anorexic-looking models. At 5 foot 9 inches and weighing less than 126 pounds, Ramos had a body mass index of less than 18 — the level classed as underweight by the World Health Organization. A BMI or Body Mass Index is calculated by taking your weight in kilograms and dividing it by your height in metres squared.
Last week, The Council of Designers of America advised designers not to use models younger than 16 on the catwalk, as well as to educate their models about the causes and effects of eating disorders. England, America and France will not go as far as Madrid and Milan, where models with less than a Body Mass Index of 18 are banned from runways since last summer. No organization is going so far as to demand that models have their good health certified by a doctor.
Although British designer Paul Smith is quoted in http://catwalkqueen.tv this week as saying that “healthier models would soon dominate catwalks, ” most designers are hesitant to make sample clothes larger than the industry-standard size eight, as the larger clothes would not be used in fashion magazine shoots afterwards. Very few designers seem willing to take the lead and the subsequent risk of losing business from influential model agencies. One designer is quoted in the Daily Mail as saying that “the simple fact is that we employ these girls as moving coat-hangers” and the general consensus seems to be that these coathangers need to be thin for the clothes to look their best.
The question of how much the fantasy-creating world of fashion influences the self-images and health habits of ordinary woman is hard to measure, but in the meantime, recent reports state that one in one hundred British women suffer from anorexia or another eating disorder. Governments can try to legislate the fashion industry, and cutting-edge designers can incorporate larger-sized models into their shows but ultimately, who will teach women how to feed themselves?
This article was published Saturday, January 27, 2007.
