The Great Weight debate in the fashion world?

Recently, a trio of fashion heavy hitters gathered together in Boston at the Harris Center for Education and Advocacy in Eating Disorders at MGH’s Annual Public Forum. The topic of discussion involving Vogue super editrix Anna Wintour, designer Michael Kors and Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova was “Health Matters: Weight and Wellness in the World of Fashion”.

Why, there is even a debate about “too thin models” after the tragedy in 2006, when “Brazilian model Anna Carolina Reston died from complications of a severe eating disorder, weighing only 88 lbs (she was 5’8″) at the age of 21…” is somewhat surprising to us.

For it’s quite apparent the fashion industry has had a long term problem, promoting underage and emaciated-looking models “as something to aspire to,” much to the detriment of those millions of teenage girls and women suffering from body perception issues, as well as the models themselves.

But, there they were in Boston, and Wintour, Kors and Vodianova provided some interesting insights and opinions.

As New York Mag’s The Cut noted: “Wintour suggested that the rise of extreme thinness in fashion is why the industry so seldom create supermodels like it did in the nineties:”

Most [models] work only when they have the uberslim physique of the very young, stop getting jobs when they fill out and hence don’t last long enough to develop public personalities, like the Nineties supermodels did. As a result, more magazine covers and lucrative beauty contracts have gone to singers and actresses, she observed.

Wintour also spoke out about models’ health and responsibility:

“Each and every one of us needs to realize we are all responsible for models’ health,” said Wintour, who called on designers to reverse the “tyranny of [sample] clothes that just barely fit a 13-year-old on the edge of puberty.”

Michael Kors created the biggest buzz among the participants, when he,

“vowed to raise the minimum age limit on models he hires to 16,” notes Fashionologie. And he did so in the presence of (Vodianova and) Anna Wintour! “The age of models really has to become a priority. We need to give these girls a chance to grow up,” Kors continued.

Kors espoused on his  belief in a strong linkage between insecurities and eating disorders among girls:

His take on the whole eating disorder topic is that girls, by nature, are hyper-competitive and will always draw comparisons, which leads to neurosis, which leads to eating disorders. Eating disorders are an outward affect of insecurities. Can you get more insecure than being a 15 year-old girl?

Liana from the New Brahmin, who attended the discussion, found Natalia Vodianova to be the most open and sympathetic of the participants:

Of all the panelists, she spoke the most freely and really touched home about what drives girls to anorexia and bulimia. She realized that after she was pregnant (no specifics – Natalia is the mother of 3!) and had lost a lot a weight, that she, too, was battling an eating disorder, or as she put it, “the little gremlin in my head”. Anna listened intently. Natalia goes on to say that these girls’ senses of self worth is left in the hands of people who aren’t paid enough to care about their feelings. She believes models need to be mature enough, but they also need information about eating disorders, someone to talk to, that support and boundaries need to be provided. By far, Natalia’s remarks were the most honest and heartfelt of the panel.

The recommendations and ideas that the panel generated included:

…speaking out more because change will follow (Wintour), don’t buy into images you don’t agree with (Kors), provide more information and support for models about eating disorders (Vodianova), look at the problem more carefully (Wintour), don’t book girls who are too thin and report them to their agencies (Kors) and realize that being a tall and beautiful supermodel is not as simple as it looks, that we all have a price to pay for our success (Vodianova).

But will any of this matter? Shouldn’t age and weight precautions for models have been adopted years ago? And will other designers follow Kors lead and forgo younger models with all their insecurities? Some will argue however, that things have changed and the fashion industry has taken a more balanced approach concerning models and body image. The Fashioneer tells us, that plus-size models have become “de rigueur”, although we would like someone to show us, who amongst, say the Top 100 models, is plus size? And even as Anna Wintour  spoke out on the issue, Vogue’s April “Shape” issue featured “Gisele looking stupidly thin just after giving birth, Karlie Kloss looking twiggy in miniskirts, and Liya Kebede looking, well, likewise very skinny. ” Meanwhile, plus-size model Kate Dillon was relegated to the “staple” section.   We  still wonder, why the fashion industry insists on the term, “plus-size models?” Why aren’t the uber-skinny waif-a-muffins dominant in fashion known as minus-size models?