fashionologie

For Brands, Thin Is Still In, Especially Because It Makes You Pay

fashionologie — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:07:07 PDT

>> In the past couple of years the fashion industry has come under fire on two separate issues: for showing a lack of diversity and for promoting an increasingly slim silhouette. In the past two months, Vogue Italia provided a whirlwind answer to the first issue, but as for the latter issue, a new study may halt any forseeable progress.

The research shows that although ads showing thin models make women feel worse about themselves, they make the same women feel better about the brand featured. In fact, despite the negative effect on their body image, the women studied preferred ads showing thin models. And get this: They were more likely to buy products featured in the thin model ads than ones showing "regular-size models."

With justification like this, and especially in the languishing economic climate we're in, there is no doubt that brands will continue to cast tiny models in their ad campaigns — regardless of the unhealthy eating habits those models have to use to achieve "the right size." It's a dirty, dirty, spiral we're in . . .
*image: source

Michael Kors, Coco Rocha Uncover Fashion's Nasty Habits at CFDA Health Event

fashionologie — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:45:21 PDT

>> At last night's CFDA-hosted "Beauty of Health" discussion, Michael Kors, Coco Rocha, and casting agent James Scully all stepped up to the plate to address the waning weights of models.

Kors threw in a designer's perspective, suggesting that his peers should "stay away from child-size clothes unless [they're] designing for children," and pointing out that when designers offer such small sample sizes and celebrities starve themselves to fit into them, their super-skinny aesthetic has a far-reaching impact on the general female population. He also advised agents to only send the most suitable girls to castings: “Sending a girl when there's little chance of her being booked throws a 16-year-old into a tizzy. The odds of a girl being booked for my show and Rick Owens’s are slim.”

Next up to the podium was Coco Rocha, who just like Natalia Vodianova and Ali Michael before her, admitted that the job comes with some very unhealthy habits. Two years ago, she weighed 108 pounds (at 5'10"), and yet people were stilling telling her "you need to lose more weight. The look this year is anorexic. We don't want you to be anorexic, we just want you to look it." Even crazier, an agent once advised her to throw up after meals.

Eventually, she submitted to the pressure. "Last season I took diuretic pills. Once I took so many on an empty stomach that I was doubled over for hours. That's the last time I ever did something so terrible to my body." She asked designers to provide healthier food at their shows — "No one wants to be caught with that photo 'Model Eats Cake'" — and to make their fit models, and therefore their sample sizes, bigger — models are humiliated when zippers won't zip up at castings.

Finally, casting agent James Scully advised insiders to consider the weight of their words. "Let's stop treating models like greyhounds we plan to shoot after a race. We have to remember we are dealing with real people who have real feelings."

Francisco Costa, Georgina Chapman, Keren Craig, Donna Karan, Richard Chai, Marcus Wainwright, David Neville, Derek Lam, Doo-Ri Chung, Diane von Furstenberg, Phillip Lim, and Anna Wintour, plus several other Vogue editors, were all in attendance at the event — which leaves quite a few American designers unaccounted for. But as Michael Kors pointed out, designers aren't the only people responsible. "The next one we need to do is about skinny people who work in fashion: editors, buyers, stylists. That’s called ‘Why Does This Sample Fit Me?”

*images: source

Doutzen Kroes Speaks Out Against Sample Sizes at CFDA Heath Initiative Panel

fashionologie — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:49:40 PST

>> Last night, the CFDA gathered an audience at Milk Studios in Manhattan for a Health Initiative discussion on “The Beauty of Health: Resizing the Sample Size.” James Scully, the casting director who worked on the likes of Jason Wu's and Stella McCartney's shows last season and Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent's during Tom Ford's reign, laid it out:

Of the 172 girls I saw for casting for fashion week, 75 of those were 16 or under. Everybody is demanding the girls fit into a 33-inch hip. A teenage boy has a 32-inch hip . . . they start too young and suddenly when they’re 17 turning 18 and they grow breasts and hips, they’ll do anything to fit into the size.

Doutzen Kroes, who started in the industry at 18 and was pressured to lose weight, offered her perspective: “I never fit the sample. I probably fit it once, when I was 11." Her solution? “We had what we called an ‘ass meeting’ with my agent. I chose to have a healthy lifestyle and work around that.”

So how will the standard be changed? »

Michael Kors Bans Models Under 16, Natalia Vodianova Talks Post-Pregnancy Eating Disorder at Boston Health Forum

fashionologie — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:36:08 PDT

>> Last night, Anna Wintour, Michael Kors, and Natalia Vodianova gathered in Boston to participate in a panel discussion entitled “Health Matters: Weight and Wellness in the World of Fashion," where they addressed current industry efforts to prevent eating disorders.

During the discussion, Kors vowed to raise the minimum age limit on models he hires to 16. “I think super-young girls used to be the exception,’’ Kors told The Boston Globe. “There’s always been a Twiggy, or a model who is very young. But they were few and far between. Now, they’re completely common. That’s something I see as a huge problem." He continued during the panel: “The age of models really has to become a priority. We need to give these girls a chance to grow up.”

Kors also noted that he doesn't book models who show any sign of an eating disorder: “We don’t book her. You shouldn’t support it or encourage it or support it, just say no.”

"Adults are in vogue. What a shock." »

Paris, New York, Milan Force London to Renege on Model Health Certificate Requirement

fashionologie — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:14:48 PDT

>> A lot of attention has been placed lately on increasing model diversity, but what about that other troubled topic — model weight?

Today, the British Fashion Council announced that their initiative to ban "size zero" models from the London catwalks next month has been abandoned after the other three major fashion capitals refused to follow suit.

The plan was to require models to obtain a doctor's certificate proving they were in good health, but the Chambre Syndicale in Paris thought imposing model health certificates lay outside their realm, the Camera Nazionale della Moda in Milan preferred self-regulation, and according to Steven Kolb, executive director of New York's CFDA:

We looked at things like doctor’s certification and body mass index and decided that, for us, it wasn’t the appropriate recommendation. We felt it was wrong to force a girl to have a physical examination, especially because the signs of a problem aren’t always obvious.

After the negative reaction of its peers, London deferred — with fashion week coming up next month, if the city had imposed such strict standards alone, models would likely have skipped the city altogether.
*image: source

Sara Ziff Is Creating a Model Alliance to Protect Models From Harsh Working Conditions and Sexual Harassment

Chi Diem Chau — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:42:12 PST

>> Sara Ziff first mentioned wanting to start a professional organization for models back in October. Now, more details are out about the organization, dubbed The Model Alliance, which will be formed by Ziff in conjunction with Fordham University’s Fashion Law Institute.

“The modeling industry is essentially unregulated,” said Ziff in an interview. “As independent contractors, models don’t have the same basic workplace protection as a lot of other industries do. They don’t have workmen’s compensation. They often don’t have access to affordable health coverage. There are no provisions for rest and meal breaks [during work hours]. There is little recourse for issues of sexual harassment and sexual abuse. And a lot of modeling agencies have a huge amount of power over international girls because they sponsor their visas.”

Ziff is currently working with The Fashion Law Institute to create a clinic for models to share their biggest problems and concerns, though she hasn't begun recruiting any models for the organization.

Chanel Turns Lipsticks Into Robots in New Short Film; Lea T. Said to Tape Oprah Segment Next Week

fashionologie — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 13:30:00 PST

Carine Roitfeld and Nicolas Ghesquiere, who were rumored to have reconciled after being spotted having a cocktail together last week, were spotted having a drink again today at the Ritz Paris [@derekblasberg]
Lea T. is reportedly taping her Oprah segment next week after opening the show of a "major swimsuit house" at Sao Paulo Fashion Week [@JasonFarrer]
Chanel’s global creative director of makeup Peter Philips animated Chanel lipsticks, compacts, and glosses to make a robot, a model, and more in this fun short film (still, left) [Nowness]
Thakoon.com is relaunching February 14, complete with “webisodes” that follow Thakoon Panichgul through his daily life working in the studio, prepping a photo shoot, or attending an awards ceremony; e-commerce is expected to launch in July [Style File]
Watch Karlie Kloss get flames put on her eyes and white paint all over her lower legs for the Dior couture show [The Cut]
Style Bubble's Susanna Lau says she “definitely” has the opportunity to make more money with her blog alone than when she was working 12 hours a day as DazedDigital.com's commissioning editor: “Each day I’m sort of dividing my time between four or five different things. The result of that is that you are gong to be getting more money than you are with a fixed wage at an independent publishing company” [BoF]
Missoni heir Jennifer Missoni has a three episode arc on Gossip Girl starting next month, in which she plays Donna, a character “very serious about her job." Note that Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester is a current face of Missoni [Fashionista]
Richard Nicoll responds to Cerruti closing its womenswear line, which he designed: "Of course I would have preferred longer to make a success of the womenswear, but I'm grateful for the experience gained at Cerruti. It makes total sense to me that Li & Fung should focus solely on menswear as that's where their experience lies" [Vogue UK]
As part of the continuing CFDA Health Initiative, Diane von Furstenberg writes in a new op-ed, "Plans for education and awareness programs are under way, such as an Ambassador Program aimed at helping young models develop the tools to meet the challenges they face" [CFDA]
A French version of Harper's Bazaar is said to be on the horizon [DFR]
Miu Miu has tapped several notable female filmmakers for a new short film series called "Women's Tales," exploring the female love affair with Miu Miu; first director up is Zoe Cassavetes - preview of her short at the link [Fashionista]
Apparently there's an unfounded rumor going around Europe that Tom Ford is set to succeed Giorgio Armani [@jcreportglobal]

Kim Noorda On Her Weight Struggles: "People in the Fashion Industry See Every Gram of Fat"

fashionologie — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:08:51 PDT

>> The April 2010 issue of Vogue features a journal kept by Kim Noorda from January 2009 to January 2010 on her struggles with food. Kim was originally sent to the Vogue offices in January of last year after her agent identified her - at five foot ten, 110 pounds - as on the precipice of an eating disorder and a candidate for an intervention underwritten by the CFDA Health Initiative.

Noorda, who at the time said as a model, she had learned to eat "a little less," spent four subsequent weeks as part of an outpatient program at Renfrew Center in New York, which treats patients with eating disorders, because even her agents, who are typically painted as perpetually telling models to lose weight, wanted her to gain five pounds. At the start of the program, Noorda spoke to a nutritionist, who told her, as she recalls: "Five pounds is not that much, and probably no one would even see it. I told her that people in the fashion industry see every gram of fat." Eventually, she gained 15 pounds to weigh in at 125.

"Every season I gained a little weight, and every time it felt like I was doing fewer shows." »

Anna Wintour Blames Extreme Model Thinness for Lack of Supermodels in Last Decade

fashionologie — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:23:46 PDT

>> On Monday night, Anna Wintour joined Michael Kors and Natalia Vodianova in Boston for a panel on model health, where she called on designers to reverse the “tyranny of [sample] clothes that just barely fit a 13-year-old on the edge of puberty.”

She went on to say that the preference for extreme thinness in the past decade has eroded models' clout, WWD reports:

Most work only when they have the uberslim physique of the very young, stop getting jobs when they fill out and hence don’t last long enough to develop public personalities, like the Nineties supermodels did. As a result, more magazine covers and lucrative beauty contracts have gone to singers and actresses, [Wintour] observed.

On a separate note, Wintour also said Vogue uses Photoshop to erase small imperfections, but not to make girls thinner than they are.

Abbey Lee Kershaw on the Pressure to Be Thin and Those Alexander McQueen Shoes

fashionologie — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:12:30 PST

>> Not all models seem to have a problem with the physical requirements of their job. Yesterday, the Daily Beast quoted an anonymous ex-model, who apparently in her heyday walked for Tom Ford and John Galliano, on the pressure to be super skinny: "Sure, we had to be skinny. I lived on Diet Coke and apples for two years. For the couture, we had to get up at 4 am to be sewn into the clothes and there was huge pressure to be thin. But I made a million dollars by the time I was 20, I bought a town house in Manhattan and put myself through Columbia. Does that make me a victim?"

Abbey Lee Kershaw, in an interview posted today with Australian nightly television show Today Tonight, seems to feel similarly when asked what she thinks about the pressure to be ultra-thin: "That's like asking a bodybuilder how they feel about the pressures to be incredibly muscly. An elite performer is always put under some sort of extreme pressure that the rest of society can argue, might not quite understand."

Those McQueen shoes, on the other hand »