The world’s top models flew to Brazil last week to walk in São Paolo Fashion Week. And as it came to a close, Paulo Borges, the event’s creative director, said he was alarmed by how emaciated the girls looked. Though many of the models are Brazilian, they are based in the U.S. or Europe most of the year. The AFP reports:
[T]he perceived new push towards skeletal models was a worry.
“This situation cannot be ignored,” Borges said, urging those in the fashion industry to stand up against the new trend.
“We would like to propose a joint effort towards minimizing this issue and preventing the effects of this trend on models, on our industry and on society itself,” he said.
We perceive nothing new about the “push toward skeletal models.” Every season the Brazilian event has seemed to employ models that were no meatier than those who walk regularly in New York, Paris, or Milan — even though three years ago organizers introduced minimum age requirements and mandated that agencies and designers issue health reports to help create “a positive message” about modeling. Maybe regulating model age and passing out pamphlets about health don’t have any effect on the image the industry has of the ideal girl. Certainly when our CFDA set up a booth in the tents to provide information about eating disorders, no one went! And we gasp at every show when the models come out because it’s impossible to get used to looking at so many girls who are this shockingly thin. We hope for change, but the industry has never made a compelling enough effort to have us believe in it.
