Here’s a secret: I used to be fat. An all-rolling, all-jiggling chubster deluxe.
I was a Michelin Man, fashion-obsessed teen. You might think it’s quite an oxymoron – leafing through the latest copy of Vogue with your right hand, while chomping the Big Mac in your left. I didn’t feel unhealthy or unhappy – I could even do the splits (all three ways – take that Darcy Bussell).
Isabelle Caro’s 5 stone frame proved fatal
This summer, a couple of friends and I were at Milan fashion Week, and it felt like the aliens had landed. These girls stomping the streets in their thick strapped Prada heels, and offensively skinny jeans were like another species. One look a these models made the fat teenager inside me want to weep. How do they do it? Is it natural? Are they happy?
Fashion is about aspiration, and these women’s ‘look’ is being sold to us as much as the clothes on their backs. But why? For the first time, in Milan, I felt truly uncomfortable at the size of some the models. I’m not denying their astonishing beauty but someone just needs to tell them to eat a fucking burger. Please.
You may be thinking this debate is old, but it’s actually an increasingly serious issue that has wrongly fallen out of the limelight. 10 years ago the weight of the average catwalk model was 8% lower than that of the average woman on the street. In 2012, the average catwalk model is 25% lighter. How can these designers appeal to the woman who is actually buying their garments when they’ll have to shed a quarter of their body weight to fasten the zip?
Loads of designers promote body beautiful campaigns. High fashion labels are doing lines for Evans, Matalan and Tesco – clothes in the range of size 14 to size 32. But the real problem is in the high fashion world of the catwalk – the world that should be leading the way.
Maybe this is the fat girl inside me talking. Maybe I wish I could fit into a custom Dior number straight off the runway. But realistically, I’d rather go a size up and finish my chips. The worry is whether the fashion industry will ever feel the same.
that King Richard liked fashion so much
"10 years ago the weight of the average catwalk model was 8% lower than that of the average woman on the street. In 2012, the average catwalk model is 25% lighter."
Im not denying that its an incredibly serious issue, but i wonder what the percentage would be if we compared today's models with the average woman from 10 years ago…
Agreed, but just think, Stephanie Seymour was the 'it' model in the early '90's. She was good looking; she had a body women could truly be rightly envious of. she still is. Look at models now; coat racks. The 'fattest' super models out there are the Victoria Angels. The most sought after, highest paid women in the fashion industry.
the Victoria's Secret Angels are the same models that do the Milan catwalks…
Some of the Angels do the Milan catwalks, and by and large they are not the issue. Fame and weight are related in the fashion world, and generally girls can be fuller figured the more famous they get because they don't need to worry about booking jobs in the same way as the girls starting out. Its the 16 year old Romanian girls who speak no English and are terrified and on their first season who you need to watch out for. If you come from a background of unspeakable poverty and you've finally found a way to make something of yourself and you're told to lose a stone, you do.
are just fatties!
The reason for that growing difference is just as much that there are way more fat and tall people than there used to be.
What a controversial article enlightening me about something which isn't publicised much at all. How original… I learned so much.
Knew I'd seen you somewhere before.
Why dont you, Ronald and I get together soon? It's been far too long.
We must discuss getting ol' King Richard here back to his Michelin Man shape again lolololll
I don't think its fair at all for you to say that the "aliens had landed". Just because a girl is thin does not mean she is unhealthy, many girls are naturally thin. I totally agree with you that for some girls there are health issues, but do you actually think that means eating "fucking burgers" are much healthier?
Why are larger girls allowed to love their curves whereas its wrong for a thin girl to love her bones. Why is it ok to tell someone to eat a burger, whereas its incredibly rude to call someone fat.
Is size 14 a healthy size? For some people, yes, that is the size of their frame, but I see no reason to promote obesity up to a size 32. Is that really "body beautiful"?
I think the main problem with the media is that it is always both telling you that curves are beautiful, and then the next week or in the same article telling you to lose weight by doing this, that and the other.
Your picture of Isabelle Caro is misleading, she has not been and would never be a successful fashion model.
The real reason that there are so many tiny girls on the runways is because the vast majority of them are 16 or under. Despite what many of you may believe it IS possible and natural for a girl who hasn't really hit puberty yet to be very slight, with no hips or bust. That is the look designers which in turn fuels the agencies to scout younger and younger girls.
The problem lies with the fact that by employing such young girls who can quite easily be so thin designers set the mark incredibly high for the young women who are also trying to succeed in the industry: models who are 18-24 and are having to diet so that their bodies can look like puberty didn't happen.
You've totally misunderstood Tom's point. It is not about fat versus thin, it is about the misrepresentation of high fashion as something that would ever realistically be worn by a girl in her early teens, with that particular body shape. The main consumers in the fashion industry are grown women who have WOMEN'S bodies. No one is suggesting size 14 should be the only size on the catwalk, but designers have to understand that they are designing for people with a shape, and thus to show clothes on human coat hangers is a misrepresentation of how the clothes will look on the consumer and furthermore promotes a totally unrealistic body image.
actually, there are girls who are 16 (and under), but these are NOT the vast majority. london even bans models under the age of 16 from walking.
I think Tom is making 2 points… and one of them IS fat vs thin.. or else why would he say:
"but someone just needs to tell them to eat a fucking burger. Please."
"I’d rather go a size up and finish my chips"
"These girls stomping the streets in their thick strapped Prada heels, and offensively skinny jeans were like another species."
The points that he makes about these girls who MAY or may not be naturally thin are just offensive and rude. Do you see an overweight looking person on the street and then write an article telling them to fucking eat less, or that their thighs in skinny jeans were offensive or that you'd rather eat a little less than look like them and then expect good reviews or agreement?
However, I do take your point that the models don't represent the consumers. But I think if you had models of a range of different sizes per show, it would be much harder to cast them because you wouldn't be able to anticipate the size of the clothes to make which are made weeks before the shows, whereas the models are cast only days before.
Furthermore, casting models of different sizes in a show would mean that you can't see what each garment would look like compared to the rest and the only way to represent the consumer well would be to make like 10 different sizes of each garment and have 10 different sizes of model which would just waste time and money.
The consumer can TRY ON clothes before they buy them and so I really don't see the problem with having size 8 models as long as they are healthy. I don't think that being size 8 is an unrealistic body image…
Wo, that's a foot, I appear to have swallowed a whole person!
I don't know what's more of a fantasy. Presenting slim, elfin models as the ideal or suggesting spending £2500 on a complete outfit is realistic.