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Trend alert! For the second time in one week, a designer sent shapely models down a Fashion Week runway. (For those keeping score, the first was Mark Fast at London Fashion Week.) On Wednesday, designer Elena Miro kicked off Milan Fashion Week by sending voluptuous (and, frankly, normal-looking) women down the runway in her fall/winter 2010-11 collection.
The goal is to "help real women to feel confident and at peace with themselves," says the brand's owner and chief strategist Elena Miroglio, according to AFP, in their effort to bring back the "'Mediterranean-shaped' woman."
"The reasons for anorexia go much deeper," Miroglio said to AFP. "The important thing for the designer is to be able to present a different kind of beauty, both in marketing and in the media."
The Italian government and two fashion association signed a code of ethics in 2006 after 88-pound Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died of heart failure. In 2007, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano made Ms. Miroglio a Knight of the Italian Republic, "praising the Elena Miro brand for 'emancipating women from a restrictive concept of beauty,'" according to AFP.
Are efforts to promote healthy looking models finally gaining momentum? Stay tuned. Next stop is Paris.