Fashion week backs down. Models can still be walking skeletons but at least they’ll be over 16.
Caving – sensibly – to public and media pressure, organisers of fashion week have canned a visit by the model featured in the post below. I’ve been amused by the posturing of various editors who have spoken out against young models while continuing to fill the pages of their magazines with only one type of body: a very tall and skinny one. Really, the body shape of a 14 year old is pretty much the same as the body shape of a regular fashion model – no boobs, no hips, no curves.
I heard Marie Claire editor Jackie Frank interviewed on ABC radio this arvo about the issue of underage models and while she was pushing for the ban on models under 16 during fashion week, I wonder if this policy flows through to her magazine? When Richard Glover quizzed her about the skinny models, she claimed it’s what women want to see. “When New Woman put a bigger girl on the cover, sales went down”, she insisted.
“CRAP” I shouted at my radio and then got on the phone to Richard Glover to make the following point on-air:
When I was editing Cosmo and put all body shapes in the fashion pages, sales went UP. It’s a total cop-out for magazine editors to keep pushing this barrow. Not to mention a lie that women don’t want to see a variety of body shapes in magazines.
Next, the former editor of New Woman who put that bigger model on the cover called up and also contradicted Jackie Frank – insisting sales of the ‘big girl’ issue of New Woman went UP not down.
Before you say it, yes I know there are still not a variety of body shapes on magazine covers – including the ones I edited – but sadly, these days you have to put a celebrity on the cover to sell a magazine and most celebrities come in one size: teeny. Ultimately, I found this hugely frustrating and I wish I’d had the power and influence to ignore this financial reality.
But inside? Inside, an editor is the gate-keeper of the images she publishes. So why do most editors continue to insist that one size of woman fits all?
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I think this is a really important issue for all of us and a chance for us as consumers to get our message through to designers that it would be really nice if they stopped designing clothes for a very small population of women who are tall and straight up and down. They do it for asthetics, PR and more importantly its cheaper to make. I’m starting up my own custom made clothing line, because I’m sick of all this crap and I’m sick of the way it makes my beautifull friends feel because nothing suits them.
Hi Mia, I have said this before and I will say it again, I DO NOT want my fashions paraded on a super skinny pre-pubescent, under developed tweens!! How on earth do they think it looks good? It is disturbing, and unattractive. Real stylish looks must be modelled by real women. Bring back the hour glass!! When are these fashion insiders going to get it?
It is time us Aussie Women stood up and told the rest of the world that we are no longer going to support the exploitation of these young girls. We are strong, healthy, intelligent women and we want similar women to be the ones modelling our fashions. Let’s ban super skinny underage girls on the catwalk and in mags, and I am sure the rest of the world will follow suit.
I admire you Mia for not being afraid to have a voice. And it’s a sane voice that’s like a breath fresh of air in such a crazy industry that gets caught up in the hype and seems to constantly forget reality (or not really give a rats about it). Thank you!
I agree with everyone’s comments … there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t have shapelier girls inside magazines, it’s really hard to see if an outfit is going to suit you when it’s on a beanpole. And it was great Mia that you started that trend, it’s a pity it wasn’t taken up by more mags … I know we like to see beautiful girls in the mags but not beanpoles. There’s a section in Shop til you Drop where they have everyday girls showing how to wear different outfits than they normally would, yes they are all pretty slim, but they are still ‘normal’ size and it’s nice to see how clothes fit, you can then assess if it’s a design you could even begin to think about trying on. Being curvy, I find it very difficult to purchase clothes in Australia (I love shopping in the US and I do every year because they cater for more variety of sizes, but we don’t have the luxury of the population to be able to do that here).
But what I was thinking about the age of models, don’t we have, in Australia at least, a legal age that children can actually be working from? Isn’t it 15 and 9 months or something? If this is true, then why doesn’t it apply to the modelling/fashion industry? Wouldn’t it be constituted as child slave labour? I could be completely off the mark, I don’t have kids.
That’s the other issue within the fashion/modelling industry, they don’t appear to have to adhere to other strict workplace OH&S policies that organisations around the world have to. I had this same discussion with Zoe Edquist when she was advocating for tougher guidelines within the industry. They did make some positive progress which was good. But at the end of the day, why should a 14 year old be representing an adult program (can’t think of the right word, too early)?
Sorry, it’s a long post !
Since I sorta grew out of Cosmo I have been really liking Marie Claire and I thought it had integrity too. But, Mia makes a really good point here. And she would know!
I mean, I didn’t even have the body of these 14 year olds when I was 14! So why would that appeal to me now at 23?
I understand that they have to put celebrities on the cover to sell the mag but I wish that what was inside the mag was more realistic than the glossy cover.
Marie Claire at least has some integrity and I have never seen a super skinny model in there and I buy most issues. Kirstie Clements was in all the papers today going on about the model- vogue has to be the absolute worst the models are always super scary thin. Vogue USA is even worse!!