Skinny models defend skinny models: go back to your office, fattie.

[buttmunch]

MILAN: "If that's all your article is going to be about, you'd better talk to someone else." Standing in the backstage area of a Burberry fashion show, Christopher Bailey, usually the most charming and polite designer one could hope to interview, just snapped.

I had started by asking him about his view on Spain's decision to ban underweight models from Madrid fashion week.

He at first replied calmly: "We have to use common sense."

So I asked what common sense meant in practice. Had Burberry ever turned away underweight models? Had Bailey ever seen a model and thought "she looks too thin"? This was when he broke off the interview, ending with the fashion world's ultimate put-down: "It's just boring."

His comment sums up the fashion pack's reaction to a raging debate over models that look sick and underfed, over a beauty ideal that some say encourages teenagers to starve themselves.

It's boring.

On top of that, it's a debate on sickness and weakness in a scene that adores power and self-confidence.

To be fair, Bailey's annoyance was understandable. He wanted to celebrate his show of cool mini-dresses and elegant coats, the result of months of hard work, not discuss eating disorders.

"WE ARE SKINNY, IT'S OUR WORK"

And yet, the twig-like arms protruding from the pretty bell-sleeves at Burberry; the waists cinched to cartoon-like proportions at Dolce & Gabbana's D&G show; the sunken cheeks and bony shoulders at Prada; all begged some questions.

The answers came mostly in the form of shoulder-shrugging, eye-rolling, and stifled yawns.

Designers such as Giorgio Armani said they did not use anorexic models. Industry players, model agents and stylists said most girls in the fashion world were genetically thin.

And the models themselves? "I think it's discrimination (to ban underweight models). We are skinny, this is our work. There are lots of overweight people working in offices but I'm not going to say ÔThis girl is fat, she can't work in an office'," said Valentina Zelyaeva, a 23-year-old Russian.

But Zelyaeva, a willowy blonde sitting backstage at Miss Bikini, also pointed out that many girls at the shows were 14-year-olds who were that skinny because they had not reached puberty.

So designers dress up 14-year-olds to make them look like 19-year-olds who look great in clothes that will be sold to 40-year-olds.

It would be simplistic to say that this child-woman beauty ideal is the main factor behind eating disorders.

Yet it also seems cowardly to deny any connection. When I was a teenager, two of my close friends developed anorexia. For both of them, it had started with a diet to "look better".

They insisted they were eating normally, even as their arms started to look like stick drawings.

"WE ALL EAT LIKE CRAZY"

When 24-year-old Shannan Click from New York, slouching in a chair with a plate of grilled vegetables and lettuce on her lap, told me that she and her fellow models were naturally thin, I was reminded of those school friends.

"If I want a hamburger, I'll have a hamburger. My whole family is thin and we all eat like crazy," she said, her brown hair pinned up in curls and her eyelids painted a vivid blue for the D&G show.

With her height of 1.74m and her weight of 52kg, Click has a body mass index - a ratio of weight to height squared - of about 17.2.

That would bar her from Madrid fashion week, which earlier this month excluded models with a body mass index under 18.

The World Health Organisation classifies women with a body mass index of less than 18.5 as underweight.

Yet to me, Click did not look sickly thin. She looked beautifully thin.

Maybe, after seeing row upon row of tall, bony teenagers on the catwalks and backstage, I had simply become unable to distinguish between the two. - Reuters

http://www.thesundaily.com/article.cfm?id=15626

That Valentina sure is sharp. I'm rethinking my stance on education. Perhaps she could use a dose.

[hotncmom]

I think an important point is that yes, a lot of these models are young teenage girls (albeit extremely tall ones) made up to look like adult women.
Normal teenage girls are somewhat "coltish" - I was myself though not tall enough to be a model. But you know what I'm talking about - the really long skinny legs, no stomach, no waist, even long arms. It's like their limbs grow long before they "fill out". I've got a 15 year old girl who lives next door and that's the way she is - tall and coltish. She'll fill out in time, getting a little meat on her bones. But in no way do I think she has an eating disorder. She's also a dancer, which contributes to the lean look.

Not to say that eating disorders aren't common in the modeling industry. I just think that a lot of the extremely skinny women we see on runways and in magazines are not women but in fact girls made up to look like women.

[buttmunch]

But there are still any number who starve themselves down. This whole debate started because a model literally dropped dead a few weeks ago as she came off the catwalk. She had been living for months on leaves and diet coke. Also, I know someone who was scouted in an airport when she was about 14. The first thing they said to her when she arrived at the agency was that she needed to lose 25 pounds. And this now woman was not even remotely anything but skinny. If you've ever seen a model in person you would understand that for the majority, this is not a normal body weight. It's not like even ten years ago when you had bigger models with healthier figures.

Anyway, at least we know that no matter what size the models are, they'll always have one constant: they're pretty vapid.

[Grimmlok]

It's hard to think when the lack of carbs is rotting holes in your brain tissue.

[celeb_2006]

Truly sad and sick to see people in denial. This thread's making me hungry

[Sojiita]

[buttmunch]

God, I really need to diet. Thanks, soj, for setting me on the right path with that little bit of inspiration.

[Tati]

^^ No, no - you mean "thinspiration".

But I agree, thanks for the killer thinspo, Soj!

[buttmunch]

Of course, thinspiration. All this food is clogging my thought processes.

[Elisa]

These girls are beyond skinny - they're anorexic and I agree that they're in denial. The modelling industry is wraught with them.

At least the Cindy Crawford, Christie Brinkley, Kathy Ireland and Carol Alt set had meat on their bones, pleasing personalities and education to fall back on. These girls today are puppets on strings. Zombies!

Anyone who's watched Tyra's Show America's Top Model knows that these girls starve themselves and think that their looks are their ticket to a lifetime of happiness and financial freedom. None of them have a personality. None of them. I'm disgressing a bit, I know, but my point is that it amazes me that parents are so focused on the almighty buck and living vicariously through their kids and their kids' fame, that they are completely oblivious to their well being.

I see many Naomi Campbell's on the horizon!

[twitchy]

"Most designers do use the very thin girls, she said, so she often has a difficult time getting larger models for her photo shoots.
"I am hard-pressed to find a professional model in this city who is big enough to fill out my Size 8 samples," she said adding that when she did find one, the model told her she was considered to be a plus-size."



Rest of article:

http://lifewise.canoe.ca/Style/2006/...911873-ap.html



Size 8 is plus sized????!!!!!

[buttmunch]

I guess I'm a fattie, then.

[NoDayButToday]

In the plus size modeling world, size 8 is plus size. Lane Bryant's size 14 models are considered HUGE for the industry even though they are very normal sized, beautiful women.

[suede]

Originally Posted by buttmunch

I guess I'm a fattie, then.

*raises hand*

You're in good company.

[buttmunch]

I think I'll go binge and purge...in solidarity with all the put-upon skinnies out there.