There's No Accounting for Fashion

With the end of the 2008 spring fashion Season in Paris coinciding with Eating Disorders Awareness Week next week, it seems a good time to ask what became of the international designers' grand promises to replace the look of starvation with a glow of health on the catwalks.

Last year, if you will recall, the anorexia-related deaths of two runway models (since followed by at least one more) prompted fashion week organizers on both sides of the Atlantic to vow with great fanfare to promote "the message that beauty is health." Milan's Chamber of Fashion issued a non-binding "manifesto" stating that design leaders had a responsibility to "creatively and constructively transmit positive aesthetic models as an instrument of prevention" of eating disorders. In order "to give value to a healthy, sunny, generous Mediterranean model of beauty," mannequins working Italian runways were to have a minimum body mass index, or BMI, of 18.5. That's about 127 pounds for the minimum runway height of 5' 9 1/2".

The Council of Fashion Designers of America issued its own "Health Initiative," stressing voluntary measures to "create an atmosphere that supports the well-being" of models. Unfortunately, the key word was not health or well-being, but voluntary. The CFDA actually specified that it would not recommend models be required to have a physical or body-mass assessment.

In its defense, the CFDA stressed that fashion alone does not cause eating disorders. But that's like saying that Las Vegas does not cause gambling.

It's true that certain people are biologically predisposed to eating disorders, just as alcoholics and compulsive gamblers have a biological vulnerability to addiction. But modeling lures those prone to eating disorders the same way casinos attract high rollers. At least 40 percent of fashion models struggle with anorexia or bulimia. These disorders, however, have a higher mortality rate than craps or roulette -- or, for that matter, alcoholism, depression, or schizophrenia.

The problem extends far beyond the runway. Of the 10 million American women and girls who develop eating disorders, many avidly study glamour shots of skeletal models for "thinspiration." This is the real reason why the size of models matters.

So what happened to all that bold talk about designers' responsibility?

I serve on the advisory board of the Academy for Eating Disorders. Earlier this month several of my AED colleagues called on CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg, CFDA Executive Director Steven Kolb, and Nian Fisch, chair of the CFDA Health Initiative, for an update on their implementation of the Initiative. We have yet to receive an answer.

"Their failure to respond underscores that the CFDA health panel was all for show--just lip service and empty promises," said Cynthia Bulik, PhD, past-president of the AED. "If there's no accountability, there's no action."

In Europe, supermodel Marvy Rieder, whose marVie Foundation aims to create a healthier working atmosphere for aspiring models, has noticed that designers are showing clothes even smaller this year than last. One model who dropped to a European 34/36 (equivalent to a U.S. 0) in order to qualify for the Milan shows was told she still was "too fat."

"Agencies often do not agree on the strict measurements made by the designers," Rieder told me, "but they don't want to be put out of business so they tell the girls to lose weight if they want to do the shows."

Of 14 recommendations made last year by the Model Health Inquiry chaired by Baroness Denise Kingsmill, the British Fashion Council has chosen to implement just four: London Fashion Week will ban models under 16; no more backstage drugs, smoking, or champagne; models will be allowed to rest between shows at a staffed apartment; and maybe by next September's Fashion Week, the Council will begin model health certification.

Susan Ringwood, chief executive of the British eating disorders charity Beat, is fed up. "We want the fashion industry to put its words into action, to just get on with it."

In a world where real women wear an average size 14, why does the fashion industry mount such resistance to more substantial models? When asked, most designers reply bluntly that skinny girls make their clothes look better.

Here, then, is the ugly truth that each of us should consider whenever we open the latest Vogue or check out what's new on the catwalk: in the world of fashion today, looks matter more than people do. Style is literally to die for.

Comments

[Maplebird]

"When asked, most designers reply bluntly that skinny girls make their clothes look better."
Actually, it's true, because designers as a rule only learn how to design for the rail-thin model who has none of the average woman's curves.
One of the earlier seasons of Project Runway illustrates this: Tim Gunn brings in the mothers/friends of the designers as models for one of the challenges, and it becomes immediately clear that none of the designers have clue number one about how to handle curves. Gunn then comments that most designers never learn how to design for real women with real figures, because it would be too difficult and time-consuming for them to learn.
So yes, the clothing looks better on skinny models because designers aren't well-trained enough to handle the rest of us.

[srj]

"When asked, most designers reply bluntly that skinny girls make their clothes look better."

Then maybe they need to stop designing clothes for size 0 or less figures and use their talent to design good looking clothes to flatter women of all sizes. Or perhaps these designers aren't really that talented after all.

[jneems]

I came across these fashion ads from the 1930's earlier today. It is amazing to see how thin the drawings made the women. Fashion seems to go in cycles. In the 1930's, it was thin. It the 1950's it was more full-figured. Now it is thin again. It will surely change in the future. I find it disgusting that women are now supposed to meet some sort of perfect criteria. No models too thin. No models too fat. Women, I guess, must be perfect to be seen on a runway. Talk about setting up an impossible goal for young women to be expected to meet. Can't we just show ALL sizes and be done with it??

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=370025370187&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=024

[mamaVISION]

Here's the whole history of the model deaths that not many blinked an eye at, there were 4 total within the past year and a half;

http://mamavision.com/2008/01/29/passion-for-fashion/

Prior to NY fashion week, my blog community and I stalked the CFDA for a comment or an update, or something on their "health initiative­"....not a peep. Every phone call, voicemail and email was conveniently ignored.

Are they fully responsible for this issue? Certainly not.

Are they in control of turning the trend?
Hell yes.

-mamaV

[Myrrhis]

As someone who makes SURE that the average is a 14 (not on purpose, I blame glands, heredity lol) I have never viewed fashion as anything but an alien art form.

My physique being what it is, participating in fashion as anything more than an observer is no more accessible than dancing with the Bolshoi. There are no real designers for large women, alas, and many large women who are thrust into situations where dressing fashionably is mandated (awards ceremonies in particular) often just settle for not too terrible looking larger versions of couture gowns, rather than clothes designed to truly flatter them.

I have done a little sewing myself, some of it recreating patterns from different historical periods. It is possible to approach a human form with more rondure in a sympathetic manner, but even if it's successful, it will never rate on the current scale of fashion aesthetics.

It's freeing, in a way. I get to wear what I want, and that lets my 42 year old self remember what it was like to be a 17 year old punk and wear converse sneakers or lots of meaningful (to me!) jewelry without worrying about Mr. Blackwell.