Yesterday I mentioned something about the skinny model ban. I’m going back for seconds!!

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First and foremost, September is the month when designers all around the world release their fall lines. This particular fact hadn’t struck me as Northern-Hemisphere-centric until I typed it out, but there you have it. I am sure that our Southern Hemisphere brethren (and sisteren?) do release their spring collections and make a big freakin’ deal about it too. Incidentally, the other big fashion month is March, when the Spring collections are released.

Ever since I was in high school, I knew that the fat (read: important) issue of Vogue was the September one — and I still remember an old “House of Style” special where über-bitchy Linda Evangelista totally dissed Cindy Crawford when she reminisced about her first Vogue cover. The exchange went something like this,

“…and that was my first Vogue cover! I was so proud!”
“But that was an AUGUST cover. Everyone knows August is not a BIG month.”

I think Linda added that she may have had her debut in September. Whatever, Linda Evangelista: you were always the lamest of all the supermodels, and your quip about not waking up for under $10,000 a day was probably your industry’s kiss of death. Good going, girl.

It’s fair now to admit that Linda Evangelista was never my favorite supermodel. That honor goes, hand down, to Tyra Banks.

Tyra. Is. Awesome.
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Back to the skinny models: so yes, Madrid’s big-time show ixnayed anyone whose BMI was under 18. Sixty-five models showed up to be assessed, and five were turned away. Milan’s mayor is thinking about instituting the same policy, and the London shows might follow suit as well.

Except, of course, that some fashion bigwigs think that if models whose body mass index (BMI) –a mathematical ratio of weight to height– clocks in at under 18 are not allowed to walk, that pretty much no one will be allowed to walk. Specifically, Naomi Campbell’s name came up in an interview with a Milan model agency honcho. He claims that BMI is just a guideline, and not an absolute.

Oh, how to tackle this one, dear Lord?

So let’s see: Naomi Campbell, the rumored cocaine-addicted, low-blood-sugar-possibly-caused-tantrum-prone model possibly has a body mass index below what is healthy? NOOOOOOO! CAN’T BE!!!!
But see, BMIs are not absolutes: as it turns out, people who have more muscle mass, and therefore weigh more for their height, have higher BMIs than people with a higher fat content.
Hm. That accounts for slightly higher BMIs… but that still doesn’t account for the lower end, does it? Unless the poor woman has bird bones thanks to all the milk she’s not drank. At least she’s staying away from *some* white substances, I say.

The crux of the matter, of course, is whether seeing these rail-thin woman-specters,

* wearing fabulous clothes by the world’s top designers– in very tiny sizes;
* having their make-up and hair done by the best and most renowned artists in the business;
* being waited on hand and foot 24/7;
* having their pictures plastered over the glossies and leading industry magazines, such as “Women’s Wear Daily”;
* being asked out,dating, and possibly marrying hot Hollywood types (à la Gisele and Leo, just to name one such pairing) or dreamy musicians (like Petra Nemcova and James Blunt– the guy who sings that annoying song that got WAY too much airplay, “Beautiful”);
* and overall getting entirely too much attention devoted to them and being hailed as beautiful and as beauty ideals;

could POSSIBLY, EVER, WHATSOEVER, have some sort of mysterious yet deleterious effect on teenage girls.

Hmmm. Apparently, fashion honchos think that the fashion industry is being unfairly targeted, and some designers are shitting a brick because their designs look best on people who most closely resemble clothes hangers.

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You decide. I merely provide the snarky blog-ed. Here are some articles:

Fashion boss rejects bid to ban thin models

London rejects thin model ban

London Fashion Week Bosses Refuse Model Ban

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PS: In one of the forums I read a quote that said, “That’s blatant discrimination against the skinny!”
My response is two-fold:
1. You’re an idiot.
2. It’s not “against the skinny,” dear. It’s blatant discrimination against unhealthy people who promote a look that is only attainable to most by extreme dieting and starvation. I am sure that there are people who are naturally THAT skinny; but as with most things in life, the whole bell curve distribution tells us that there are very few that way. The rest have to overdiet.

There.

19 Sep This entry was published on September 19, 2006 at 9:58 am and is filed under Soapboxing. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.