Down at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia, a debate has erupted over ‘skeletal’ runway models. The furor was first sparked by Marie Claire Australia editor and publisher Jackie Frank, who was not pleased with one of the models she spotted on the runway at designer Alex Perry‘s show.
“When I saw those legs I nearly died,” she told The Daily Telegraph. “I rang the model agent and said, ‘Why is that girl walking down the runway when she’s clearly not healthy?’” (The agent says that the model is eating well.)
The papers notes that many of the models who are considered ‘too thin’ by the Australian fashion industry’s standard have just returned from working in Europe, where they faced intense pressure to be “Paris-thin” and fit into European sample sizes.
Melissa Hoyer, an opinion writer for the website News.com.au, responded forcefully to the “brouhaha,” as she called it:
“Pointing a manicured finger at them and saying ‘you are too thin and therefore incredibly sick and unhealthy’ is, in my mind, a mild form of bullying.
How do we know the state of anyone’s health? Do we say similar things, with the same rage and fume to morbidly obese people?
…
This is about a debate that goes round and round and round each season, that always sparks outrage. The sad contradiction in all of this is if a model dares show a little cellulite. Or a tummy. Or some back flesh. You hear sniggers from audience members about them ‘being fat.'”
Shock at the parade of strutting skeletons at Australian Fashion Week — The Daily Telegraph
‘Skinny model’ debate hits Mercedes Benz Fashion Week again — News.com.au
Previously:
Watch: Do Runway Models Perpetuate an Unattainable Beauty Standard? [theFashionDish]
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