Luxury Cult

Vogue weighs in on size zero models

Fed up with ever tinier sample clothes being sent to her magazine for photo-shoots, the editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, has sent out a letter to leading fashion designers - Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano among them - stating her concerns.

I am hoping this may prove to be a turning point as it is the first time that someone as influential as Shulman has entered the debate – she has been the editor of Vogue for over two decades, and the fashion industry will find it difficult to ignore her views.  You may recall that the whole issue of size-zero models got an airing a couple of years ago, but fashion houses seemed to have carried on as before, or going by Shulman’s experience, even taken in the seams a tad more.

Shulman says sample sizes have now become so small that even super models like Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista would no longer fit into them.  The magazine is forced to look for girls with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” to fit into the clothes, and that in turn promotes the super-skinny look, a look that Shulman says is no longer in sync with her readers.

Bravo, Shulman, for taking a healthy stance!  The lurking danger in all this, of course, is that women - especially teenagers - try to get the same skinny look, and that can lead to eating disorders. In India, the fashion industry is still at an early stage, and the size zero issue - notwithstanding the flak that Kareena Kapoor got on it - has not had much impact at society at large.  But as the industry develops, this is an issue to watch out for. Or go a step further and put up some guardrails: it would be good if the fashion industry as a whole - whether Western brands or Indian brands - and the fashion magazine industry vowed not to show underweight models.  Perhaps the Madrid standard of refusing models under a BMI of 18.5 at its fashion shows is a convention the Indian fashion industry could adopt.

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Here’s Shulman's letter as quoted in The Times (UK), June 13 2009, page 16:

"I am writing to you about a subject which is becoming increasingly disturbing, and about which I would really like to know your views.

"During the time I have been at Vogue the sample sizes that models are required to wear have become substantially smaller.  We have now reached a point where many of the sample sizes don’t comfortably fit even the established star models.  Instead we are having to use girls with jutting bones and no breasts or hips, to fit them.  Nowadays, I often ask the photographers to retouch to make the models appear larger.

I am finding that the feedback from my readers and the general feeling in the UK is that people really don’t want to see such thin girls either in editorial or advertising.  I am often having t run headshots on the cover, rather than images where you can see clothes, because my readers are uncomfortable with the size of the models when seen full length."