from www.theimproper.com
The editor of the UK edition of Vogue magazine is the latest to fire a broadside in the debate over thick and thin in the fashion industry.
She’s joining critics who think the industry is fueling an epidemic of anorexia by demanding that models fit into “size zero” dresses.
Curiously, American Vogue Editor Anna Wintour, who is far more influential, has been silent on the issue.
But in a highly unusual letter sent to a number of top European fashion houses, UK Editor Alexandra Shulman accuses designers of making magazines hire models with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” by supplying them with “minuscule” garments for their photo shoots.
UK Vogue is now frequently “retouching” photographs to make models look larger, according to the letter, obtained by the Times of London.
“We have now reached the point where many of the sample sizes don’t comfortably fit even the established star models,” Shulman wrote to some of the biggest names in the business including, Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano and fellow designers at Prada, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent and Balen-ciaga.
Her letter follows on the heels of the deaths of three models from complications relating to malnutrition, and the decision of leading fashion shows to ban size-zero models. But many top fashion industry figures do not share her point of view.
Heidi Klum, who was featured in a nude photo spread in the March 2009 issue of German GQ, was called “too fat” to be a supermodel by a top German designer and modeling agency head, and legendary fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld dismissed her as a nobody.
German designer Wolfgang Joop said Klum, 36, was “too fat” to be a supermodel. Joop, 64, is well known in Europe and Germany and is a judge on Germany television’s Next Top Model. Klum has hosted the show for the past three seasons in Germany.
Last June, supermodel Karolina Kurkova was blasted in the Brazilian press for being “too fat” to walk the runway at the Cia Maritima show during Sao Paulo Fashion Week.
When Kurkova strutted the catwalk in a bikini looking like she had gained a couple of pounds, a local newspaper skewered the leggy 5’11″ Czech for having noticeable fat on her back and butt. The report touched off an international firestorm.
Shulman claims that the clothes created by designers for catwalk shows and subsequently sent to magazines for use in their photo shoots leave editors with no choice but to hire models that fit the clothes, or fail to cover the latest collections from the leading designers.
Supermodel Erin O’Connor called the stand by the editor of Britain’s most prominent fashion magazine as “a huge breakthrough”
“The fact that Alexandra Shulman with her enormous influence has opened this conversation means that it will have a huge impact,” she said. “It has . . . made it compulsorily relevant that we address this now,” she told the Times.
Actress Kate Winslet also faced a backlash in her home country of Great Britain because she had lost weight and gone “Hollywood.” In England, Kate’s big appeal was her “normalcy,” wrote Liz Jones in the London Daily Mail.
Kate’s appeal in Britain was her slightly plump figure, her rounded curves and her accepting attitude about who she was and what she looked like.
But recently a new Kate emerged, probably best illustrated by her recent photo spread in Vanity Fair magazine. Winslet, 33, debuted a more svelte figure, lean and hungry looking and about as far from the frumpy English matron as she could get. And that’s what apparently set off the recriminations.
Actress Lindsay Lohan was the latest to set off alarms over a drastic weight change. She appeared model thin at New York Fashion Week in February and raised concerns that her health might be in jeopardy.
Producers on her latest movie told her to gain weight, because her character in the movie is supposed to look “normal.”
Shulman’s letter is being hailed in Britain as a turning point in the debate over model. One UK fashion industry executive called it “an encouraging sign” from one of the industry’s “leading lights.”
American Vogue fashion editor Anna Wintour, who is immensely more influential, could probably spark real change in the industry, if she were to speak up. Yet she remains awkwardly silent.
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