Fashion Industry, Struggling with Size, Realizes Age is Part of the Problem

The Detroit Free Press

The models auditioning for New York Fashion Week were undeniably thin. But it was only after the fashion industry started worrying about too-skinny models that casting agent James Scully began asking their age.

Most, he found, were under 16.

"Things are very seriously wrong at this moment," Scully said.

As another round of runway shows kicked off last week, fashion insiders have again taken up the cause of emaciated models, this time with a new target to blame: youth.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America hosted a panel discussion last week about changing the standard model "sample size," part of the health initiative it started after the death of a model with an eating disorder three years ago.

Spain and Italy adopted mandatory weight guidelines at the time, but the CFDA opted for voluntary measures that put the focus on nutritional and emotional counseling. Since then, some models have been red-flagged and removed from the runway to focus on eating and living well, said CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg.

The recent panel, "The Beauty of Health: Resizing the Sample Size," initially focused on whether increasing the size of sample garments used in fashion shows and magazine photo shoots from 0 to 4 would result in healthier models. But designers, models and agents agreed that part of the problem is the dominance of very young models.

"You can't address the sample size 0 without addressing age," said David Bonnouvrier, head of DNA Models.

Among the CFDA guidelines was a recommendation that models under 16 be kept out of fashion shows, and models under 18 kept out of fittings or photo shoots past midnight. Those guidelines clearly haven't stuck and remain purely voluntary.

The current youthquake happened as runway tastes moved from Brazilian bombshells like Gisele Bundchen to Russians and Eastern Europeans, such as Natalia Vodianova, who has talked about her weight struggles, Scully said.

When scouts first fell in love with the very angular, narrow Eastern bloc look, those girls were ill-prepared to be away from home in the high-pressure, competitive fashion world, added DNA's Bonnouvrier. Even American models were younger -- 17-year-old Karlie Kloss, for example, did her first round of shows with her dad by her side.

Designer Zac Posen traced the problem to Kate Moss back in the early '90s, and said it could take a long time to erase the cultural impression of the waif.

It's natural for a 13- or 14-year-old to be slim, have a small bust and hips that measure no more than 33 inches, but as those models age -- to all of 18 or 19 -- they will do "terribly dangerous things" to fight nature and their increasingly womanly bodies, Scully said.

Model Doutzen Kroes, 25, is a Victoria's Secret Angel but says her fashion-show work has slowed to almost nothing. The reason? She's too big.

"I'd love to do shows but I don't fit in the sample size," she said in an interview after the panel.

The Dutch native started her modeling career at 18, and was constantly told she was pretty but "needed to lose a few pounds," she recalled. But she looked in the mirror and liked what she saw, and made the decision to work with her agent to make her curvy figure an asset -- hence a brand like Victoria's Secret.

Brazilians Voice Concern Over 'Skinny Models'

AFP

SAO PAULO — The organizers of Latin America's biggest fashion show raised the alarm Thursday over emaciated Brazilian models apparently following unhealthy US and European trends.

"We have noticed with concern that some models on our catwalks -- often the most booked -- are extremely thin. These Brazilian girls are based most of the year in Europe and in the USA where they work majorly," Paulo Borges, the creative director of the Sao Paulo Fashion Week, said in a statement.

He issued the warning after seeing models fly in to parade in this week's Brazilian fashion event and stressed he and the other organizers were intent on "preventing extreme health problems among these professionals."

The Sao Paulo Fashion Week has over the past three years introduced minimum age restrictions and a health report requirement for the agencies and design houses that book models to help create "a positive message" about modeling.

But the perceived new push towards skeletal models was a worry.

"This situation cannot be ignored," Borges said, urging those in the fashion industry to stand up against the new trend.

"We would like to propose a joint effort towards minimizing this issue and preventing the effects of this trend on models, on our industry and on society itself," he said

Size Matters

Irish Times

The decision by a top German magazine to banish skinny models in favour of ‘real’ people has earned it cheers from its readers and hisses from the fashion industry, writes DEREK SCALLY

EVERYTHING looks normal in the new year edition of Brigitte , Germany’s leading women’s magazine. There are tips for better hands and hair, a story about hermaphrodite babies and, as always in the post-Christmas issue, the Brigitte diet to help shed those unwanted festive pounds.

But a closer look reveals something startling: does that woman in the red chiffon dress on page 57 have . . . a wee belly? And does that woman on page 49 have . . . a tattoo? They are tiny details that should be barely noticeable, yet on the glossy pages they stand out like a juicy hamburger in a vegetarian magazine.

“Compared to the touched-up photos that are all-present these days, a ‘natural’ person appears almost pornographic,” remarks Brigitte in its first ever “no models” issue.

It’s a radical departure for the 56-year-old magazine and one that has earned cheers from its three million German readers and hisses from the fashion industry.

Brigitte editors announced the step last October, after complaints from readers that they couldn’t associate with the models. Adding to pressure for change were the magazine’s picture editors who had what they called the “disturbing and perverse” task each month of using photo-editing software to digitally add weight to models’ breasts and thighs.

“It’s not just about weight, but producing an authentic magazine with which women can identify better,” says Brigitte spokeswoman Eva Kersting, something she says is increasingly difficult with models who show up much thinner than their agency cards suggest.

“One showed up for a shoot looking nothing like her photo, telling us proudly how she’d lost another 3kg,” says Kersting. “That was the end for us.”

The magazine’s “no models” announcement in October caused a sensation, but was dismissed by many in the German media world as a PR stunt. After all, Brigitte is more a general women’s magazine combining fashion with recipes than a high-fashion glossy with stick-thin models on every page.

Competitor magazines, annoyed by Brigitte’s coup, complained that they had been doing “street fashion” shoots with regular women for years. Countless designers weighed in to defend the “size zero” trend, saying their clothes simply looked better on thinner women – but that they were happy to produce versions in all sizes.

The war of words climaxed with a barb from German designer Karl Lagerfeld. “No one wants to see curvy women,” he told Focus magazine. “What you’ve got here is fat mothers with their bags of crisps sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly.”

Brigitte editors stand by their decision, encouraged by a reader survey in which just over a quarter of women aged 19-29 rated being thin as important.

Since announcing the move, editors say they have been flooded with thousands of congratulatory letters from relieved readers. “I find it great that other women won’t just see themselves as mothers, friends, housewives but also as women who are pretty, even if they aren’t models,” said one reader.

Browsing the first “no models” issue is an interesting experience, in particular to see women who seem to be enjoying posing rather than pages of dead-eyed models whose last full meal was back in the last century. Of course shifting to “lay” models has created extra work for the production team: getting the right shot from normal women requires more coaching and patience. Then there is the problem of getting clothes for fashion shoots from companies still sending out “size zero” samples.

The German magazine’s move is another small step in the revolt against the “size zero” trend that began last June when British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman complained about “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” on the models booked for shoots.

In a letter to designers she laid the blame at their door for supplying sample clothes “many of [which] don’t comfortably fit the established star models”.

But the backlash from the fashion industry has been quick, with some rebelling against Brigitte ’s initiative.

“Too many things are being thrown into the one pot here,” said Berlin designer Michael Michalsky to the magazine. “Naturally I find it great when I see a girl at a casting with the right measurements to look good in my clothes. But one thing is clear: when the ribs and spine poke out front and back, then I know the girl has a problem and can’t appear at my show.”

Model figures

    * Thirty years ago a model weighed on average 8 per cent less than the average woman; today the difference is 23 per cent.

    * A survey of model eating behaviour found that half had a body mass index under 17.5 – the “anorexic” zone – with one-third of the total “acutely disturbed”.

    * A decade ago, models’ careers began at the age of 15-18, today the industry favours 13-14 year olds.

Courtesy of Brigitte