So, once again, the thorny issue of size and fashion is on the agenda right on time for London Fashion Week. This one comes round time and time again, and yet fundamental changes to unattainably tiny model sizes have yet to be universally addressed.
I’ve been back-stage many, many times, so I’ve seen it all; I’ve seen models being tugged into clothes that barely allow them to move, never mind breathe and I’ve also seen models so whippet thin that it looks painful. Dark circled, pale faces on elongated children’s bodies chugging on coconut water or Evian (or actually, whatever water is part of the event sponsorship, as things are now). I’ve even done backstage manicures – so I’ve been at the nitty gritty end of things as well as the glamour of the FROW.
There are women of all ages who are naturally thin and I know that they really mind that ‘thin’ has suddenly become wrong. It’s not wrong if it’s a natural shape that you’re happy with and I quite understand that being tarred with an eating disorder brush when you have the metabolism of a rocket is very annoying. So, I think we have to remember that thin is wrong when it’s something forced upon you, or when it’s presented as an ideal. Everyone is different, there is no ‘ideal’. We’re very inclined to take a moralizing stance over extremes (because you’re certainly not ‘allowed’ to be overweight either) and forget that these extremes trickle into our consciousness when we’re not even looking, and suddenly, with no warning, it’s an ‘ideal’. Just like in the beauty industry where the homogenised beauty ‘standard’ is nothing like real-life – but we’re still persuaded that that’s what we should look like. It’s exposure over time that does the damage, not one shock pic of an ultra-thin fashion model during Fashion Week.
So, that’s where the fashion industry – and the beauty industry – can make a change. It’s about balance and what we see over the long term. Although, I refuse to hold the fashion or the model industry entirely to account – have you seen Instagram lately for the utterly unattainable? It’s also worth noting that at beauty presentations we are often shown looks on models and on the one occasion that I’ve felt strongly enough to make comment (to the brand) upon a particular model who was at the very, very extreme end of thin (to the point she looked unwell), it was at a beauty presentation, not a fashion event. Actually, my biggest bug-bear at fashion shows is the stupidly high, badly fitting shoes models are made to walk in – one awkward tumble and that’s their entire modelling season gone, and all because the designer couldn’t be bothered to fit them a pair of shoes.
Maybe it’s time to pass over some of the responsibility to the fashion buyers – the shows aren’t entirely filled with celebrities and influencers. There is real work going on while store buyers (Harvey Nichols, Harrods, Selfridges et al) pick out their forthcoming season’s best sellers. If they refused to buy collections shown on excruciatingly thin models, then the designers would have to listen. A designer who sells nothing isn’t a designer any more.
And then there’s us in the responsibility chain. The consumers. I’ve never not bought an item of clothing because I thought the model it was shown on looked too thin..but I could. I’ve also never not bought a beauty product because the model was too airbrushed. But I could make those choices. We all could. And yet, we don’t. So, it’s all very well to throw all of the responsibility over to the fashion industry, but consumer is king. We should act more and speculate less if we really want change.
The #NoSizeFitsAll campaign from the Women’s Equality Party is to raise awareness of body image and to raise discussions on why tiny sizes are so idolised within the fashion industry. They don’t mention the beauty industry, but they should. What they’re asking for is entirely reasonable: BMI checks (under 18.5 needs medical clearance), and a commitment to showing two sample sizes (minimum) at London Fashion Week, one of which should be a UK size twelve or over.
The bigger picture stuff about this impactful campaign is that it could start a new behaviour, and therefore, goals changing. When women, young or old, stop seeing being thin as a goal and instead start to see being an appropriate weight as the norm (again, everyone is different), then it will be an achievement. But, this only comes if what we see over an extended period of time changes, which is where the media, fashion and beauty industries are called to do the right thing. Oh, and Instagram or any social account that suggests a filtered image as an attainable image.
The #YoursTruly campaign that I am involved with for L’Oreal features women of all tones, all sizes and all ages and it’s had a hugely positive response – I mean, huge. People love it because it’s made of people like us. And we like people like us, not people who’ve been formed by someone else to look like something else.
Have your own say HERE at Change.org.
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15 comments
thank you for being continually brilliant!!!!
A really refreshing post to read, one that I’m sure many will agree with! I’ve signed the petition in the link too, thanks for this post.
The best analogy that I can come up with is dog breeds – you have whippets and you have labradors and both are beautiful and perfect. I have a dear friend who is a very healthy greyhound – she is naturally super-slender and I know that sometimes she has to remember to eat because she gets so busy between dogs and horses and work. When there was all the hoohah about size zero clothes, I asked her what size clothes she wears and she is in UK size 8 jeans and sometimes size 10 jackets because she has a good set of shoulders. That would make her US size 4-6. I cannot imagine how tiny a size zero would be.
(I’m a happy Labrador, but I’m not very healthy – need to work on that. Longer walks…)
I still don’t understand why designers are so focused on showcasing super-thin women. There are so many gorgeous body types out there and I feel like designers are limiting their pieces to such a small niche of women.
I am personally more inclined to purchase an item modeled by a curvier woman – why can’t they mix things up for a change?
Well said Jane and love Lisabirdword’s words. I would love the catwalk to be more representative and inclusive! Oh and the trends for the newly fashionable body “areas / zones” make my teeth grind. I am a curvy shape and it makes me laugh when one season boobs are in (how exactly?!), then it’s shoulders / waist etc. Rant over. I am signing the petition now xx
Wow!!! Amazing post!! Another reason why I love your blog so much!!
Mel | http://www.thegossipdarling.com
“I’ve also never not bought a beauty product because the model was too airbrushed.” I have been ignoring and not buying brands that over airbrush for a good few years now.
“I’ve never not bought an item of clothing because I thought the model it was shown on looked too thin.” Perhaps folks are put off my unrealistic models. From The Guardian on 6th May 2016 ” official data shows that households are spending less on clothes”.
I miss magazines with editorial pages of fashion that I would like to wear. There is too much substandard avant-garde and I blame Shulman and Coddington for this. Perhaps I’m looking through rose tinted spectacles but the Vogue of Beatrix Miller always contained a few pages of fashion I actually wanted to wear.
Really interesting read and something I often think about when I’m designing. I always use a standard K&L mannequin for samples which is between an 8 and 10 and then struggle to find a model to fit (and fill!) the clothes. I don’t like pinning or clipping to extremes either because then that isn’t representative of the clothes. Much though I wasn’t fussed by her in the BBC Vogue documentary, Alexandra Shulman has said samples should be made a bit bigger. I think samples shouldn’t be crazily small but I’m not sure about having sample sizes as mandatory. It would be lovely (and designers with the funds should definitely take it on board) but fashion week is already prohibitively expensive for many designers and adding in the costs of another sample size might be difficult.
Jane, thank you for writing about this issue without insulting thin people, something which many need to stop doing. Surely the catwalk shows would be praised and non-controversial in media circles if brands started showcasing their designs on glowing, healthy-looking people who are slim, curvy, larger or anywhere in between? I feel uncomfortable looking at high fashion shows as I’m concerned for the models’ welfare above all else.
Models have always been thin though, haven’t they. Go back to the 1950s; Jean Shrimpton, Sophie Malgat, Jean Patchett, Suzy Parker, Dorothy Horan. Tiny as can be. Seventy years on and little has changed except the models are a good deal younger than they used to be. I think it bears remembering that until quite recently, on average most people were slimmer due largely to the fact there wasn’t the avalanche of food available that there is now and they were also more physically active.
Ironic when you think about it; the models get ever wraith-like while the general public gets bigger.
Don’t get me wrong, in no way do I support the unhealthy, sometimes dangerous practices that have been revealed in the fashion and beauty industry. Telling a perfectly normal, slender 18 year old girl she needs to lose twenty pounds is ridiculous and needs to stop. But as Jane says, perhaps we need to stop finger pointing and start by taking responsibility for ourselves and vote with our wallets. I don’t think you will EVER see “average” sized models, whatever that is. But nothing sends a clearer message to a brand than a drop in sales. Make your own expectations realistic and perhaps they will follow.
I hear you – it’s such a complicated issue. I’m horrified that you’ve been verbally abused although I think it says rather more about the builders that it does about you, but I also hear that you’re not happy… what I don’t think I understand is whether you aren’t happy with your weight or you aren’t happy with everyone else’s view of your weight? My general feeling is around size is ‘your body, your business’, but small or big, I don’t think I know a woman that is completely happy with their weight and not trying to achieve something different with it.
I am happy with my lot so to say, I have a husband who loves me whatever size I am. I totally agree with the fact that most people have their hang ups big or small, I don’t think I am happy with my size now but I am exhausted trying to lose weight. Being shouted at obviously really upset me at the time but I don’t let it change who I am, I loving mother, wife and friend.
The WEP campaign is irresponsible and ill-judged, centred as it is on the idea that thin models lead to eating disorders. Fact: no serious study has ever established a CAUSAL link between media imagery and EDs, but you wouldn’t know this by looking at the WEP website, which shamefully exploits ED sufferers in pursuance of an agenda – even though said agenda does have some perfectly reasonable aims. EDs are extremely complex mental illnesses with causes that are poorly understood as yet. Putting the blame on pictures of thin models, as the body confidence lobby does all the time, may seem kind of plausible but is actually no more evidence-based than old beliefs that mental illness was caused by things like evil spirits or astronomical events.
I’m also pretty uneasy that those who say (rightly) that it’s bad for girls to be deliberately losing weight to become thin models don’t ever argue that it’s bad for girls to be deliberately piling on pounds in order to become plus-size models. Many leading plus-size models have admitted that they deliberately went up several sizes in search of work. With an obesity epidemic raging, how is this any better than what’s happening at the thin end of the spectrum, and how does it fit in with the idea that we should all love our size no matter what it happens to be?
As you’re proving – it’s a thorny topic with plenty of argument on all sides. There are always consequences to a lifestyle of extremes in any walk of life. I think you can be thin and healthy and you can be bigger and healthy but you can also be in extremely poor health at either ends of that spectrum because of weight and consequent side effects. It’s also the case that imagery presented over time, sometimes long periods of time, becomes lodged as a ‘norm’ because we don’t know or don’t remember any differently. So whether there is scientific proof or not, you only need to talk to young women to understand where they take their ideals from. Men are affected too, with weight issues at either end – something made that happen.
I’m very much in favour of diversity, but sadly almost every campaign in this area ends up spreading dangerous and unscientific myths about eating disorders, or falling into “skinny-bashing”. The WEP campaign does both those things in spades. Ultimately, it’s a negative campaign, not a positive one; the accent is more on “these skinny models are bad for us” than “wouldn’t it be good to have more diversity”.
I also think the extent to which our culture promotes a “skinny ideal” is massively exaggerated. Outside the rareified worlds of high fashion and ballet (the latter of which is skinny-dominated for obvious practical reasons), thin and small-breasted women are almost invisible in our culture, which mostly celebrates the “curvy” woman and always has done. This may be great for women who are curvy, but not so great for women who are not, however much they might wish to be.