Now here’s some inspiring news. Germany’s highest selling women’s magazine, Brigitte, is ditching models in favour of non-models. Notice that I said “non-models” instead of “real women”. That was deliberate. I’m going to try and get through this post without denigrating models or skinny women because it’s really REALLY not about that. That’s mean and lazy. That’s skinny-bashing.
In my view, it should be more about embracing diversity and acknowledging that the women we see in mags are not indicative of the majority – or even the minority – of the population FOR SOME UNKNOWN AND BAFFLING REASON.They are indicative of perhaps 1% of the body shapes that you would see in a female demographic sample. Even a young sample.
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. You probably need some background.To provide it, here’s what UK newspaper The Guardian has reported:
Germany’s most popular women’s magazine is banning professional models from its pages and replacing them with images of “real life” women instead.
In what is seen as the latest attempt to stamp out the “size zero” model, the editors of Brigitte said it would in future only use women with “normal figures”.
“From 2010 we will not work with professional models any more,” said Andreas Lebert, editor-in-chief, adding that he was “fed up” with having to retouch pictures of underweight models who bore no resemblance to ordinary women.
“For years we’ve had to use Photoshop to fatten the girls up,” he said. “Especially their thighs, and decolletage. But this is disturbing and perverse and what has it got to do with our real reader?”
He said the move was a response to complaints by readers who said they had no connection with the women depicted in fashion features and “no longer wanted to see protruding bones”.
“Today’s models weigh around 23% less than normal women,” Lebert said. “The whole model industry is anorexic.”
Brigitte, which is Germany’s best-selling women’s title with more than 700,000 copies, offers readers a familiar diet of fitness, lifestyle, recipes and sex, which tends to appeal to upwardly mobile younger career women.
Lebert said the magazine would call on German women to put themselves forward as models for fashion and makeup articles.
“We’re looking for women who have their own identity, whether it be the 18-year-old A-level student, the company chairwoman, the musician, or the footballer,” he said, adding that he wanted a mix between prominent and completely unknown women and would look out for politicians and actresses interested in modelling.
Critics accused Brigitte of seeking a cost-cutting strategy at a time of declining magazine sales, and of dressing it up as a campaign issue to attract new readers, but Lebert insisted the “ordinary women” would be paid the same amounts that the magazine would otherwise pay model agencies.No one has yet been signed up for the new initiative, but Lebert is thought to be scouting around. He will undoubtedly extend an invitation to Chancellor Angela Merkel. While her fashion sense has sometimes been questioned, she makes headlines each year with her eye-catching choices of ballgowns at the annual Wagner festival in Bayreuth, and she recently had a Barbie doll modelled after her.
Other figureheads might include arguably the most successful female tennis player of all time, Steffi Graf, or the country’s popular family minister, mother of seven, Ursula von der Leyen.
German commentators said that Brigitte’s move had clearly been inspired by British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman’s recent appeal to major fashion houses to end the “size-zero” culture.
Two years ago Spain introduced a law banning models who were “too thin” from the catwalks.
Model agencies reacted with scepticism to the Brigitte plan.Louisa von Minckwitz, owner of Louisa Models in Munich and Hamburg, where models have to be “size 36 (UK size 10), tending towards size 34 (UK size 8)”, said she understood the rage about underweight models but doubted that readers really wanted to buy a magazine to look at ordinary women.
Look. I have a few things to say at this point (none of them about Karl Lagerfeld because I’m saving him for another time. He is a post all unto himself).
The first is that those ‘critics’ who claimed such a move is a cost-cutting exercise are talking through their bottoms because on a fashion shoot, your lowest cost is the model’s fee. Lower even than the catering. Models are not paid well for editorial work (which means the work they do in magazine fashion and beauty shoots). Just a few hundred bucks. Even for a cover. Even if they’re supermodels. The big bucks only kick in for advertising. So that argument is utter piffle.
The other thing I’ll say is that I did something very similar when I was a mag editor although I didn’t go as far as ‘banning’ models. I wish I had. I think what Brigitte is doing is brilliant.
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so very true Guest..... how is it "stereotyping" when the series of spelling errors proves her point in THAT instance.
The second to last Brigitte issue of 2009 featured Crystal Renn. So from now on they aren't going to use one of the most famous larger sized models in the world in their magazine even though they only have to pay editorial rates and not her usual day rate????? *headdesk*