model health inquiry

• Fashion industry made me too thin, says Kate Moss — Guardian UK
• Victoria's Secret to add a dash of sexy to Fashion Week — FWD
• Nina Garcia's 10 fashion essentials — NY Daily News
• The best place to shop the Paris Fall runways is New York City — NY Sun
• Uncreative black tie, please: The end of goofy dress codes — WSJ
• Fall shoes: Preening pumps and feathered feet — IHT
• The cheapest Yves Saint Laurent jewelry you'll ever find — Nylon
• Fashion's 50 most powerful — NY Daily News
• How to rock the coat this Autumn — Times UK
• Olympic swimmer given golden Jimmy Choos — Marie Claire UK

While others may be lagging on the issue, the Council of Fashion Designers of America is set to walk its talk. In partnership with the Renfrew Center, a treatment center for eating disorders, the CFDA will set up health initiative booths inside Bryant Park during New York fashion week .

The stands will be scattered inside lobbies and backstage to provide information on the signs and symptoms of eating disorders along with the CFDA's recommended guidelines promoting health and beauty. Supporters can also sign a proclamation, which was launched in June, in support of their guidelines at the booths. Awesome.

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As the model health issue turns, it has been announced that a model health certificate for London Fashion Week is “an unworkable solution,” according to Hilary Riva, chief executive of the British Fashion Council. What is further disappointing, “From our conversations with our international counterparts in New York, Milan and Paris it has become clear that they do not recognize the need for an international health certificate.”

The BFC already banned models under 16 from walking the London shows and requires the shows to have healthy backstage environments. Also, the BFC is developing a website that will have advice for models and aspiring models, with links to sites about eating disorders. I'm not so sure this is as strong as a health certificate . . .
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"She wakes up in the morning, goes to the bathroom to take a shower and runs by the full-length mirror because she can't bare to look at herself naked. She only weighs 104 pounds, but all she can think is, I need to be thinner. She hurries to her first show, where she promises herself she'll eat a few grapes. But when she gets there, there's nothing but pastries. First looks are called, she puts on her dress and it takes three people to zip her up. The dresser makes a joke, 'We almost had to call the agency and tell them you didn't fit.' All the girl can think is, I better not eat until tomorrow." Those were the words of model Coco Rocha as she described a day in a model's life at the CFDA discussion on "The Beauty of Health: How the Fashion Industry Can Make a Difference."

To read more about the discussion and what Coco had to say, read more

Less than a week after the French fashion industry signed a charter promising to promote healthy body images in magazines and on the Paris runways, the French parliament's lower house adopted a controversial bill that would make it illegal for anyone to publicly incite extreme thinness.

The bill has yet to be approved by the French Senate, which will review the proposal in coming weeks, but if approved, it will be the strongest of its kind anywhere.

However, doctors warn that the link between eating disorders and media images remains hazy, and Didier Grumbach, president of the French Federation of Couture, made no secret of his strong disapproval of such a sweeping measure. "Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny," he said. "That doesn't exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France."

Do you think this is a step in the right direction?

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Yesterday, the French fashion industry joined with the country's Health Ministry to sign a charter promoting healthy body images in magazines and on the Paris runways.

The charter outlines a series of guidelines, committing the industry to work toward "a diversity of body representations" and refrain from using "images of people, in particular youth, that could contribute to promoting a model of extreme thinness."

This action follows the recent inquiry by the British Fashion Council on the effects of airbrushing, all spurred by the anorexia-related deaths of several South American models in 2006, including Brazilian Ana Carolina Reston.

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In the wake of the British Fashion Council's Model Health Inquiry, which resulted in models under 16 being banned from the London catwalks, the airbrushed pages of magazines are now coming into question.

The British Fashion Council (BFC) wrote to the UK's Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) in December to suggest "a voluntary code covering the use of digital manipulation [in photography]." A BFC spokeswoman said that rather than limiting magazine's use of airbrushing, they would like to see a warning that the image had been altered instead. The PPA yesterday agreed to discuss the matter with British magazine editors.

Do you think it would be productive to have a surgeon general-type warning on airbrushed images? I'd be interested to see what unairbrushed images actually look like. Would you?

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