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  Last Updated: Wednesday, 13 September 2006, 09:58 GMT 10:58 UK                        E-mail this to a friend      Printable version

                  

  Madrid bans waifs from catwalks

  <!-- S BO --> <!-- S IIMA -->          The Madrid fashion week runs from 18 September             <!-- E IIMA --> <!-- S SF --> Madrid fashion week, one of Spain's most prestigious shows, is banning underweight models on the basis of their body mass index (BMI).   UN health experts recommend a B
• of between 18.5 and about 25, and some models may fall well below the minimum.
• The Spanish Association of Fashion Designers has decided to ban models who have a BMI of less than 18.
• The association agreed to use the BMI - a calculation based on height and weight - in response to local government pressure.
• 30% of would-be participants fail this test and this year's fashion week, which begins on 18 September, will offer medical treatment to excessively thin models.
• Madrid's local government says it wants to set a more positive, healthy image of beauty for teenagers to follow.
• "Fashion is a mirror and many teenagers imitate what they see on the catwalk," said regional official Concha Guerra.
•   You cannot ban skinny women in the same way you cannot ban fuller bodied women
• Spain's Anorexia and Bulimia Association says if designers refuse to follow these voluntary restrictions the government should legislate to ban thin models.
• "I understand they want to set this tone of healthy beautiful women but what about discrimination against the model and what about the freedom of the designer?" she asked, adding that the careers of naturally "gazelle-like" models could be damaged.

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• Madrid's fashion week has turned away underweight models after protests that girls and young women were trying to copy their rail-thin looks and developing eating disorders.
• Madrid's regional government, which sponsors the show and imposed restrictions, said it did not blame designers and models for anorexia. It said the fashion industry had a responsibility to portray healthy body images.
• The mayor of Milan, Italy, Letizia Moratti, told an Italian newspaper this week she would seek a similar ban for her city's show unless it could find a solution to "sick" looking models.
• It has turned away 30 percent of women who took part in the previous event. Medics will be on hand at the September 18-22 show to check models.
• A spokeswoman for the Association of Fashion Designers of Spain, which represents those at Madrid fashion week, said the group supported restrictions and its concern was the quality of collections, not the size of models.

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• Three models banned from Madrid fashion week for being 'too skinny'

   

  Last updated at 00:57 12 February 2008

   
   
   
   
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• The show, which started yesterday, bars models with a Body Mass Index of less than 18, believing that they set an unhealthy example for teenage girls.

   
• The three rejected by organisers had a BMI of less than 16 - the equivalent to a 5ft 11in woman weighing around 8st.

• A BMI of between 18 and 25 is considered healthy for an adult under 60.

   
• "Their BMI was 16, which is a very low figure which represents extreme thinness.

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• The already skinny 22-year-old had been informed by her model agency that she could "make it big" if she lost a significant amount of weight.
• So, for three months she ate nothing but salads and greens and drank only Diet Coke in an attempt to reach the elusive ?size zero?, so coveted by the fashion world today.
• Luisel dropped dead from heart failure. The ultimate fashion victim.

• The question on everyone?s lips is not what the new skirt length will be for the coming season, but what the Body Mass Index (BMI) of the model wearing it will be.

   
• Sparked by a ban at the recent Madrid catwalk shows on girls with a BMI below 18 (a model who is 5ft 9in tall would have to weigh a minimum 8st 11lb to work), the Mayor of Milan is calling for a similar ban at the upcoming shows in his country.
• Hilary Riva, chief executive of the British Fashion Council (BFC),
• The BFC does not comment or interfere in the aesthetic of any designer?s show," she says.
• "Nobody would want to use a model who was unhealthy. I would say there has been a bit of an over-reaction.
• "If I make them any bigger so I can use models that are more shapely, no one will use the samples in the fashion magazine shoots afterwards because magazines nearly always use size eight-or-under models.
• "I cannot afford to lose that potential
• On one level, we?re vilified for using thin models on the catwalk. But women are the first to bitch about anyone who dares have an ounce of flesh hanging over their waistband.
• that we employ these girls as moving coat-hangers. "We?re not looking for sex appeal or to hold a mirror up to the woman on the street, we're trying to shift clothes to the store buyers, and I personally think that a slender figure is the best way to show them off."
• After all, no one expects to live the life we see in the movies. Away from the catwalk, are we to ban whippet-thin Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, Paris Hilton, et al from our screens and celebrity magazines?

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• allowed her ravaged body to be photographed nude for an Italian advertising campaign to raise awareness about the disease, died on Nov. 17. She was 28.
• But Ms. Caro weighed only about 60 pounds when she posed,
• She was 5 feet 4 inches tall and had battled anorexia since the age of 13.
• The image, displayed on billboards and in newspapers as Fashion Week got under way that year in Milan, was shocking.
• In large letters, “No — Anorexia” ran across the top of the photograph.
• The Nolita campaign came as the fashion industry was under a spotlight over anorexia, after a 21-year-old Brazilian model, Ana Carolina Reston, died from it in 2006.
• “I decided to do it to warn girls about the danger of diets and of fashion commandments.”
• Ms. Caro should be in the hospital and pronounced the image “too crude.”
• The ads were eventually banned by an Italian advertising watchdog agency, which determined that they exploited the illness.
• In 2006, when her weight dwindled to 55 pounds, she sank into a coma.
• This March, she announced with pride that her weight had risen to 93 pounds.

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• The death of a 21-year-old Brazilian model from complications of anorexia has reignited debate about the fashion industry and eating disorders at a time when various cities around the world are considering banning the ultrathin from the catwalk.
• Ana Carolina Reston, who weighed just 40 kilograms, or 88 pounds, when she died in São Paolo on Nov. 14, was the second model in recent months to succumb to an eating disorder.
• Last week, Giorgio Armani urged designers to stop using ultrathin models.
• "This grossly oversimplifies the issue,"

• Emphasizing the catwalk, van Furth said, "helps to trivialize and stigmatize the illnesses, and can prevent people from getting help."
• these factors can include genes; early environmental influences; temperamental factors like low self-esteem; perfectionism; obsessiveness and anxiety; family variables; and often a "precipitating event," like abuse or the loss of a loved one.
• The fashion industry, images of celebrities, relationships with parents and other environmental factors load the gun
• Some experts caution that while banning emaciated models may send a positive message to young women at risk, it can also lead people to think that eating disorders are "behaviors of choice."
• Currently under way is a $10 million international study to look for specific genes that lead to a susceptibility to anorexia.

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• Caro became famous overnight when she posed nude for a shocking Italian ad campaign for the Nolita clothing line in 2007. The unforgettable images showed Caro's skeletal and emaciated frame, complete with bones sticking out from sagging skin.
  
• No Anorexia."
• discourage the use of super-skinny fashion models.

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• for designers as well known as Giorgio Armani and Dior.
• In a year in which both 'skinny chic' (wearing oversized clothes on tiny body frames) and the American size 00 (an emaciated UK size two, or a waist the same as a typical seven-year-old's) was the height of fashion in celebrity-land, Reston's demise seems all the more poignant.
• it's hardly surprising that Reston's death has shone a spotlight on the way the business treats its models, and more significantly, on how destructive our current perception of female beauty can be.

• When they returned, a fashion agent offered to introduce her to Ford, one of Brazil's top modelling agencies, for a fee of £100. The family accepted.
• In July 2003, after four successful years at Ford, she signed to Elite, one of the biggest agencies in Brazil, a move which catapulted her from teenage wannabe to serious model.
• But although no one can pin an exact date on when she began to suffer from anorexia, one former booker, who refuses to be named, believes that it was here things started to unravel for the then 18-year-old
• 'She arrived in China,' explains a booker, 'and the guys looked at her and said, "You're fat." She took this very personally.'
• Reston, she says, only ever drank fruit juice, and after her death was found to have survived on a diet of apples and tomatoes.
• 'The other girls, the agencies, everyone. Don't believe it when they say they didn't.' Reston's aunt, Mirtes Reston, who plans to present a petition to the government demanding steps to monitor the modelling industry, is more direct. 'These girls are white slaves,' she says. 'We want models to have rights. At the moment they are given no pension, no support... They just take the person away from their family and abandon them far away.'
• Dr Marco Antonio De Tommaso

• Tommaso has spent 11 years working with models and given consultations to nearly 2,000 of them, including some of the country's most famous faces. He also treated Reston.
• He regards Reston's experience as typical, citing in particular the way in which 'new faces' are parachuted into the most demanding and adult of worlds when they are unable to cope.
• There is no doubt there is cause and effect here. The fashion industry showcases models with extreme body shapes, and this is undoubtedly one of the factors leading to young girls developing disorders.'
• If someone is just a tiny bit bigger than the industry demands,' he says, 'they are treated as if they were morbidly obese. This encourages a pattern of beauty that is absolutely unreal.'
• Journalist Laura Ancona is not surprised: 'I've lost count of how many times I've seen models vomiting in the toilets [at fashion events], or sniffing cocaine, or 13-year-old girls fainting because they're not eating properly.'
• It kills somewhere between 13 and 20 per cent of its victims.
• for young models at least, professional demands can be a 'very strong factor'.

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• it called for increasing awareness about eating disorder symptoms and recommended a ban on models younger than 16 walking in fashion shows.
• we should not underestimate the consequences of the messages that we send,'"
• According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, nearly 70 percent of girls in grades five through 12 said magazine images influence their ideals of a perfect body
• "In general, when I'm working with patients, this concept of a 'thin ideal' does come up," said Dr. Allegra Broft, a psychiatrist in the Eating Disorders Program at Columbia Psychiatry, who explained that eating disorders are very complicated in terms of their etiology.
• "Although thin models are not the cause of eating disorders, they can be a trigger or a factor in maintaining an eating disorder,"
• Becker's work has concentrated on Fiji, where she found the arrival of the television corresponded with, among other things, an increase in disordered eating, including vomiting to lose or control weight.
• A follow-up study found that second-hand or peer exposure was particularly powerful, with friends discussing, copying and internalizing media images
• With Fashion Week, and all of those thin models, and clothing that looks best on a size zero -- what that does is set a standard of what is socially desirable and prestigious that is likely to have a powerful influence on social norms," she said. "If one day we had a Fashion Week where there were size 16 models, I suspect that would be very influential, too."
• Plus-size models rarely walk in fashion shows, she said, and she doesn't anticipate that changing

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• Halfway through the meeting Cech is asked to strip. She does as instructed and takes off her clothes. Then the photographer starts undressing as well. "Baby - can you do something a little sexy," he tells her.
• The famous photographer demands to be touched sexually. "Sena - can you grab his cock and twist it real hard," his assistant tells her. "He likes it when you squeeze it real hard and twist it."
• "I didn't like the way the casting had gone. If the casting was that sexual I was sure the job would be really sexual and gross." The photographer never offered her work again.
• apart from the occasional flurry of publicity about anorexia or drug-taking, outsiders know surprisingly little about the multimillion-pound business which profits from some of world's most beautiful women.
• Sena Cech is one of a handful of models who has decided to talk publicly about the seedy, unglamorous and, on occasion, abusive side to her profession for a new documentary, Picture Me.
• She's been the face of brands like Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Stella McCartney, Dolce & Gabbana and Gap.
• She's strutted down the catwalk, eyes blank, unsmiling, for all the top designers from Marc Jacobs to Louis Vuitton, Gucci to Chanel.
• The earlier parts of the film reflect the lighter side of the industry such as the camaraderie among the models and the buzz of a catwalk show.

• At a private Gucci show at the Los Angeles home of the restaurateur Mr Chow, he came to the attention of the armed guards and was escorted to a holding cell in the house, his camera confiscated.
• few unregulated industries in the western world.
• Then suddenly he puts his hands between her legs and sexually assaults her. "She has no experience of boys, she hasn't even been kissed," says Ziff. "She was so shocked she just stood there and didn't say anything. He just looked at her and walked away and they did the rest of the shoot. And she never told anyone."
• The model had agreed to be included but the day before the premiere in New York she changed her mind and became frightened about the repercussions. She begged Ziff and Schell not to use the material.
• Pretty much every girl I have talked to has a story like it, but no one talks about it.
• the model is totally disposable. She could be gone in two years."
• "Vulnerable girls are being put into a potentially predatory environment," says Ziff. "What's in the agency's interest is not always best for the girl, and if she's in a compromising situation, she doesn't necessarily have anyone to turn to."
• A union, she believes, could provide some protection
• What alarms Ziff is that there's an expectation that models are comfortable using their sexuality.
• The industry has become increasingly sexualised, and the lines between what is acceptable and what isn't have become more blurred. Naked models inside the pages of a magazine or on a billboard are ubiquitous.
• "It is an inherently unbalanced and hierarchical relationship when you pair a 15-year-old girl with a 45-year-old man who is trying to create a sexual

• ised image. You are asking for trouble."
• 'We might need to see you without your bra,' he told me. It was like he was a shark circling me, walking around and around, looking me up and down without saying anything. I did what he told me to. I was just eager to be liked and get the job. I didn't know any better." Teenage girls, she says, are being persuaded to pose in a sexual way when they don't even know what it means yet
• "The images came out and they were practically pornographic. What the photographer saw was not what I felt. It had nothing to do with that 14-year-old and what she was feeling and everything to do with what the person behind the camera projected onto her."

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• that forced them to fight for the right to join Equity, the actors' union.
• Victoria Keon-Cohen and Dunja Knezevic
• They told Equity leaders that many models are pressured into having sex with clients, doing nude photoshoots even if they are underage and staying dangerously thin.
• 'lewd and suggestive comments' to groping and attempts to persuade models to sleep with them.
• They say girls are often too intimidated or embarrassed to complain and that some agencies, not their own, ignore models' concerns in order to maintain good relationships with important clients.
• Drug-taking is commonplace in the industry, with some models, including those under 16, using cocaine and amphetamines to stay as thin as possible.
• Models start in this industry at 14, 15, or even 13, and they definitely need protection from exploitation, harassment and bad attitudes,
• We want to get to a situation where the parents of models will not be frightened of their child going into modelling because they know they have protection and support. But there's a lot of work to do to achieve th
• e've had enough and we're determined to change things for the general safety of the models, especially the young girls, who are vulnerable,' said Knezevic, the Bosnian-born model who has appeared in campaigns for Topshop, Levi's, Vogue, House of Fraser and Marks & Spencer.
• In our industry models lack even the simple right to a single break in a 12-hour day. If a model sprains her ankle jumping on a trampoline in high heels, her scalp bleeds from an allergic reaction, or she is photographed naked because the stylist spoke secretly with the photographer to undo her shirt at the exact moment the shot was taken, she has nowhere to go.'

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• “There’s lots of drugs, there’s lots of alcohol, there’s lots of photographers preying on these girls,” Dickinson said Tuesday on TODAY. “Thirteen is way too young.”
• “Look at Kate Moss — problems with the law and drug abuse. Look at Naomi Campbell,” Dickinson said, ticking off a list of lives gone wrong in the glamorous and often sordid world of modeling. “These girls have unresolved problems because their parents abandoned them.”
• The bottom line, she repeated, is that her own experience has taught her that the business is too brutal for kids. “I’m the world’s first supermodel, and it’s too young. It’s way too young.”

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• We support the enforcement of existing child labor and contract laws,

• Ensure that existing child labor laws are enforced.

   

• Child labor provisions under FLSA are designed to protect the  educational opportunities of youth and prohibit their employment in jobs that  are detrimental to their health and safety. FLSA restricts the hours that youth  under 16 years of age can work and lists hazardous occupations too dangerous  for young workers to perform.

• For nonagricultural operations, it restricts the hours that   children under age 16 can work