Here at Model Ethics, we were truly excited to see a flurry of curvy girls gracing the catwalks at London Fashion Week in February. But did it really hail a new era of healthy, gorgeous goddesses being used for conventionally 'skinny' brands?While we salute Canadian knitwear designer Mark Fast for sprinkling in a few lady lumps and bumps amongst the coathangers, we are both surprised and disappointed that fellow designers, especially our own home-grown talent, did not follow suit. On the upside, I guess this year, no stylists or creative directors walked out in protest at being asked to work with 'plus-size models'. However, there were still far too many jutting collarbones and vertebrae for our liking.
Does anyone remember the Model Health Inquiry back in 2007? It was an initiative launched by the British Fashion Council in response to the death from starvation of several models (not to mention many more 'normal' teenagers and adults) who had been slaves to the size-zero trend. The inquiry failed to set out any firm industry guidelines and the latest update on their website (http://www.modelhealthinquiry.com/) seems to have been back in September 2008. In the meantime, we are still plagued with walking adverts of malnutrition on our catwalks.
So why oh why can't we say what we mean and mean what we say at LFW? In Madrid, the regional government, which sponsors the shows, actually intervened back in 2006; encouraging the Spanish Association of Fashion Designers to ban all models with a Body Mass Index of under 18 because (surprise, surprise!) girls and young women in their thousands were emulating their stick-thin looks; putting their lives in danger achieving 'the zero goal'. And true to their word, since 2006, Madrid Fashion Week's directors have upheld their own regulations by banning over 15 girls in the last few years (including three Brits) from the catwalk for being underweight.
And why can't we do the same here? Why don't our talented mainstream designers use the sizes they sell the most off the rails on the catwalk?
