Facing the demands of beauty
As the size zero debate rages on, Ellen Carpenter speaks to one catwalk model about her experience during London Fashion Week and her perspective on the industry
The usual debates surrounding London Fashion Week – cinched belts or dropwaists? Puffball or trapeze skirts? – have this year been submerged beneath a weightier set of issues: does the fashion industry encourage the spread of eating disorders? Are the nation’s teenagers being dangerously manipulated by media images of stick-thin models sashaying down London’s catwalks? Moreover, are the models involved in the events themselves at risk?
The long-running debate as to the impact of media representations of beauty on young girls’ self-perception was driven to a new level by the deaths from anorexia of two model sisters within a six month period. And so began the ‘size zero’ debate.
Should models with body measurements equivalent to a British size four be displaying the latest collections from top designers? Madrid Fashion Week’s decision to ban models with a body mass index below 18 from its catwalks sparked speculation as to whether other events would follow suit.
The British Fashion Council, the body in charge of running London Fashion Week, defied Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell’s calls for a similar ban. The BFC asked model agencies to use only healthy models, preferably over 16, but issued no explicit bar on underweight models.
Esme Addison, a 15-year-old who modeled for Biba, Giles Deacon and Marc Jacobs during London Fashion Week 2007, disagrees with the size zero ban. “Sometimes girls are just naturally skinny”, she says. “It’s not fair to ban them.”
Nor does she see the modelling industry as encouraging the spread of eating disorders within its ranks: “There was always food available, there was ravioli at the agency during the castings and sandwiches everywhere at Claridges. When I was at a fitting for Giles Deacon he told me to tuck in.
‘I’m actually among the bigger girls, but it doesn’t make me want to be skinnier. I’m too thin already’
“There’s no pressure from the agency at all. I’m one of the bigger girls there, I have 36” hips, but that doesn’t make me want to be that skinny. I sometimes feel I’m too skinny now.”
However, she admitted the model lifestyle isn’t always conducive to healthy eating, saying, “Models may not have time for breakfast in the morning because their show calling time could be 7am so they have to eat a cereal bar on the go. Or they just have no free time between castings to fit in a proper meal. If it hadn’t been for my mum buying me a sandwich every day before I got in the car I would only have snacked on biscuits and sweets.”
Even with the wide availability of food, the organizations behind London Fashion Week are not necessarily concerned with ensuring the models stay healthy during the grueling schedule the event entails. Evidently, the BFC’s guidelines on the well-being and age of models are easily discarded in the whirlwind of fitting sessions, hairspray and designers’ demands.
Despite assuring me that “I never came across anyone I thought was way too skinny” during London Fashion Week, Esme recounted a story that would suggest otherwise: “I was in a car with three other girls, and our driver stopped at a petrol station to get some lunch. One girl claimed that it wasn’t healthy enough, one didn’t even bother to get out of the car and the third one looked around the shop and walked out without buying anything. They must have thought I was weird when I came out with two packets of crisps, a massive roll, some cheese triangles and a bottle of water.”
It is unsurprising that for girls as young as 14 the prospect of appearing before the critical eyes of hundreds of journalists, fashion commentators and celebrities is a nerve-wracking one and the pressure to meet expectations overwhelming. Is it the responsibility of the models themselves or the organizations employing them to temper this anxiety with a proper diet? Esme recalls that, “After a typical day, I was exhausted. It was a real pain to think that when I got in I still had to cook and eat dinner, but it was probably the only time of day when I could fully relax, so I also welcomed it.”
So who is to blame for the prevalence of exaggeratedly thin models on the catwalks of London Fashion Week? The Fashion Council, the media, the designers, or the agencies? Esme believes the current cohort of Fashion Week models is largely self-selected: “The agency doesn’t scout skinny girls; most models approach the agency, rather than the other way round.” Esme herself was approached while shopping on Oxford Street and, being “one of the bigger girls”, perhaps this theory holds true.
For the many young girls with hips considerably larger than 36” and without a modelling contract to confirm their beauty, however, the fact that the modelling agencies may not have consciously picked tiny models would hold little consolation. That it appears to be overwhelmingly thin girls with the confidence to approach model agencies attests to the spread of perceptions of the fashion industry’s taste for size zero models.
Esme, however, believes the effect of thin models on young girls has been exaggerated: “I don’t know a single person who uses models as role models. And if they are, it’s most likely to be supermodels, who are on the whole a healthy weight.”
Nonetheless, a fashion industry populated by underweight models is unlikely to be a positive force in the battle against rising rates of eating disorders among women and particularly young teenagers. Even if it is but one influence on society’s standards of beauty, it is perhaps at the top of the chain, with images and ideas filtering down through popular culture to the levels that do influence young girls.
But is a ban on a particular size of model the solution to the self-esteem problems of the nation’s teenage girls? Dictating the type of models allowed on the catwalk may not do anything to alter standards of beauty. If designers continue to create clothes to fit size zero models, agencies will surely continue to supply models of that size.
Moreover, is stigmatizing a skinny body shape any more sound than suggesting that larger-sized girls are not attractive? Surely the best way of reducing the prevalence of eating disorders and raising the self-esteem of teenagers is not to privilege any one body-type over another, but to ensure that ideas of beauty encompass all?
This is not to suggest that models starving themselves on lettuce should be allowed on the catwalk, as much for their own well-being as for their effect on others. However, for those girls who are naturally skinny, being told that only women with large busts and hips are ‘womanly’ or ‘sexy’ is just as damaging to their self-perception. Esme also felt it would be entirely unfair if she were excluded from a show due to her size.
Perhaps the most pressing question, more than the diffuse and debated effect of catwalk models on teenage girls’ self-perception, is the well-being of the models themselves. With models as young as 14 working over 12-hour days for a week at a time, the organisers of London Fashion Week should perhaps consider providing a more widespread system of care and support, rather than a straightforward ban. Madrid’s policy of ascertaining its models’ BMI and providing medical help to those considered severely underweight does perhaps constitute a step in the right direction. However, the combination of pressure and packed schedules that young models face may need more than a cursory medical check-up to ensure their health
There is certainly no easy, much less quick, answer to this problem.
It is a network of demands, expectations and standards weaving between designers, models, agencies, and the media, in which no one policy will produce a significant shift. It is particularly difficult considering there appears to be no conscious effort to promote thinness on the catwalks, with both agencies and designers encouraging models to eat as far as possible within the confines of their schedules.
Reversing the trend of declining BMIs and ages amongst the fashion industry’s models is not something that can be achieved by a quick-fix ban. Creating a healthier environment in which these young girls work is, however, perhaps the paramount concern and will in turn provide something positive for young women to aspire to.
