Anorexic Model Ban Threatened at London Fashion Week
Posted on September 18, 2006
Just before London Fashion Week began, a British Cabinet minister has called for Britain to join Madrid in banning too-skinny models from upcoming runway shows. The move follows a ban of models with a Body mass Index below 18 at Madrid's Fashion Week (Pasarela Cibeles).
British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell says in a statement, "I applaud the decision taken by Madrid to ban super-thin models, and urge the organizers of London Fashion Week to do the same."
The World Health Organization considers people with a BMI below 18.5 to be underweight. The AP notes that "to achieve a BMI of 18, a 5-foot-9 model would have to weigh about 125 pounds. The average runway model at that height is 115 pounds."
Jowell also says, "The fashion industry's promotion of beauty as meaning stick thin is damaging to young girls' self image and to their health. Young girls aspire to look like the catwalk models -- when those models are unhealthily underweight it pressurizes girls to starve themselves to look the same."
London Fashion week is in full swing this week. The Guardian reports that it's been reinvigorated by the appearance of Anna Wintour at the shows last year. This year, the superstar is the appearance by Giorgio Armani.
Last season, London was effectively reinstated on the fashion map by Anna Wintour, the hugely influential editor of American Vogue, whose presence in the front row marked the end of London's years in the wilderness. The message was that if she took the London shows seriously, so must the rest of the fashion industry. While she won't be attending this time, London is again playing host to more famous faces: designers Giorgio Armani and Tom Ford, who is in town to judge the Fashion Fringe competition for emerging design talent.Armani, the uncrowned king of Italian fashion, is presenting his Emporio line outside Milan for the first time, and is launching his new Emporio Armani Red capsule collection, 40% of the profits of which will go towards the Global Fund, the agency fighting Aids in Africa.
So far the proposed ban has been completely ignored by the designers showing in London. Meanwhile, designers in Milan are watching the situation carefully to see if they will be subjected the horribly cruel and unfair Madrid Protocol which bans anorexic models. Because who doesn't enjoy looking at the voluptuous Stella Tennant in a Chanel bikini?
A follow-up by the New York Times says London has rejected the thin model ban.