Ali was essentially locked out of Paris fashion week due to the fact that her legs were "too fat" after she stopped starving herself and gained 5lbs. She went from opening big shows and being everywhere to being cast for only one show, Yohji Yamamoto.
Miss Michael was last season's model du jour, and she looks wraithlike, with a still-developing body and a 23-inch waist. But this season, after gaining five pounds, Miss Michael was told by casting directors for the runway shows that her legs were too plump, according to her mother, Mary Ann Michael, who travels with her daughter to appointments and shows. And so, after doing a string of major supermodel shows in September, Miss Michael snared only the Yohji Yamamoto show in Paris this time around.
23 inch waist and she's too fat to walk in Paris.
It's hard to imagine Miss Michael, a willowy, 5-foot-9-inch teenager, being told her legs are too fat. Last season, Miss Michael made herself sick keeping her weight down, said her mother. Miss Michael's reward was to be heralded as the next supermodel.
I would say something much more profound and eloquent about this entire situation but I'm actually choking on my rage. Yes, nothing has changed, yes things are just as bad as the have ever been but everything I really want to say is an expletive.
16 comments:
Goes to show you all of the talk about having healthier models in shows is a load of bravo sierra.
But didn't Rachel Clark, in an interview on this site a few months ago, say that everything was fine in fashion, and that designers had a right to discriminate? One sees here the inevitable results of such thinking -- the designers will keep discriminating to the point of killing models (as they have in the past), to say nothing of the harm they inflict on the countless young women who keep starving themselves to emulate these girls.
Shame on anyone who tries to be an apologist for this sick, sick industry, and thinks only of themselves and their own careers.
I don't think it's fair to associate this story with Rachel Clark's comments: if Rachel herself hasn't encountered any discrimination, been encouraged to lose weight, or seen it happen to her friends, peers, and colleagues, then she has every right to say so. There are areas of the industry, and people in it, who aren't evil (just as there are plenty of absolute fuckers at large in fashion as well), and I personally think it blurs the issues, and is unfair to both Rachel and Ali, to conflate Rachel's interview and personal experiences, with this story.
Ali's experience is utterly horrifying, and sickens me. It does make me think that the solution no longer lies in talking about this stuff, and holding lots of fashion council meetings: it's time for the industry to act on these occurences, ban designers from fashion weeks, and actually enforce the regulations they supposedly adhere to.
(The FA manage to control a multi-billion pound industry, enforce fines and ban players and managers, etc., without the whole infrastructure crumbling. But fashion likes to pretend it can't survive without certain designers, which simply isn't the case.)
Reader Crystal sent me this email as she "didnt feel like making a blog account to say that under "comments''"
"Comment:
BULL****!!
Fat legs?!
Incredulous.
Can you say
SASHA PIVAROVA?!?
(this is relative)"
I am a little confused. Is she saying Sasha Pivarova has fat legs? Or very skinny toothpick-like legs? My brain hurts.
It is not Rachel Clark's discussion of own experiences that is so problematic. It is her defense that designers have a "right" to enact any kind of discrimination they wish. That kind of thinking, that support of an absolute lack of accountability on the part of designers, inevitably leads to gross abuses of power, and abuse of human beings (both models, and fashion's consumers). It does so in any industry, fashion included. This is another clear example.
However, Harriet, I DO agree with you on this point, most wholeheartedly: "it's time for the industry to act on these occurences, ban designers from fashion weeks, and actually enforce the regulations they supposedly adhere to." YES. Ultimately, designers must be made accountable. Any other industry that so deeply affects society is regulated, and for good reason. Fashion must be regulated as well, because it's obvious that designers will not become responsible of their own accord.
I thought you weren't allowing anon comments anymore...
Harriet, word to everything you said.
Edith, check your inbox!
Ugh is all I have to say. Poor Ali. I hope she is strong enough to stand all this nonsense.
Head scratcheing, to say the least.
I'd love to have legs as 'fat' as hers.
I hear Behati Prinsloo was called a "fat pig" by a stylist. And all the wonderful people over at The Fashion Spot are defending the stylists and casting agents for rejecting these girls. Yep - nothing has changed.
I completely agree with you and would be honoured to swear on your behalf: this is all bollocks.
(wicked blog by the way: its one of the only places I can get a fashion fix whilst eating a cake and not feel gluttonous about it!)
Good lord. I have looked at photos from last season and this season, and I can honestly not even tell the difference.
Who buys this "fashion"?!
to google_account3,
"But didn't Rachel Clark, in an interview on this site a few months ago, say that everything was fine in fashion, and that designers had a right to discriminate?"
NO, as a matter of fact I did not say everything was right in fashion. I said models were not being forced to starve. Notice how Ali walked away instead of choosing the unhealthy decision.
I should also point out that my opinions did not come solely from a naive and inexperienced perspective. For your information I did not do any shows in Paris this season either. 2+2= point.
I'm sorry that your strong feelings against the interview of MY opinions have driven you to twist what I have said.
Regardless, I still stand by designers having a right to be discriminative over which models they choose to have in THEIR shows even if I'm not in their elite chosen pool.
I can't imagine anyone ever thinking her legs are fat. I also can't imagine a mother letting her child get into such an unforgiving profession before she's fully developed. The havoc she's recked on her growth can't be healthy.
Rachel, do not feed the trolls. Also does Ali have any campaigns this season? A model can still do really well without runway. Hilary Rhoda hardly ever does runway but she has a lot of campaigns so she's very successful.
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