Hannah

An article in today's issue of the Mirror, a British newspaper, describes the appalling situation of a model who, although she was clinically anorexic (not just looking anorexic, but clinically anorexic), was still deemed too "large" for the obscenity that is the modern fashion industry.

The story reads like a parody, like a distortion about what could happen if the promotion of emaciation continues. But no, it is true. This literally happened.

Keeping in mind the point in People's article about Kate Dillon, about how the discussion of anorexia prompted Kate's own sickness, I won't post a link to the article, as it describes all of the things that this poor girl did to starve herself. But here are the pertinent points:


Unlike other models who have literally died, Radziejewski fortunately got out in time:


It is insane that this twisted world is allowed to exist. It is sheer madness that an industry is allowed to starve all of its workers, to force them practically to die if they want to have a career.

In no other industry has this been allowed. It is as bad as the worst child-labour practices of the early Industrial Revolution. It is akin to sending in people to work with asbestos, and if they die, or if they fear for their lives from working with the toxic substance, then forcing them to quit and bringing in other workers, and putting their lives in jeopardy, in an endless conveyor belt of human suffering and torture.

There is NO justification for this systematic abuse. NONE. Clothes do NOT look better on walking skeletons, and walking anorexics are FAR more "distracting" from the clothing than curvy models are.

It is intolerable that just because designers have a fetish for visible bones, that they are allowed to impose their perverted aesthetic on society and force women to starve - not just the models themselves, but all girls who emulate them.

By the inclusion of a few faux-plus models, this industry has tried to give itself cover. But just because it includes a few girls who are only the size of the straight-size models of two decades ago and calls them "plus size" doesn't change the fact that designers are continuing to impose a toxic, criminally abusive aesthetic.

The industry needs regulation more than ever.

Meredith

A similarly infuriating story appeared in the British press just yesterday:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...odel-too-big.do

The gist of it:


How crazy can this industry get? The girl is already clinically underweight, yet still not emaciated enough. She is literally faced with a situation where she must become even sicker, even more anorexic, to be acceptable to the perverted individuals who run this industry.

But what makes this article notable is the fact that the owner of the agency that represents this model unambiguously slammed his own profession. This is a remarkable expression of candor. He outs the facts that everyone knows are at the root of the problem, but that no one ever talks about:


Again, it's a courageous move on the agency owner's part to speak out like this, although it's appalling that his own agency conforms to an industry that he himself acknowledges to be so clearly pathological.

If more insiders would break the code of silence in this manner, the industry would finally be forced to change, and to celebrate the soft fullness of natural femininity that it currently suppresses.

HSG

These situations are truly horrifying, and should remind everyone that the occasional appearances of faux-plus models on the runway has done nothing to eliminate the mandated anorexia that pervades the fashion world.

In fact, these token nods to "inclusion" could have a sinister side. While giving an illusion of progress, they could function as smoke screens to distract the public from the truly horrifying, cadaverous appearance of the rest of the models. The intention may simply be to get the press to run headlines such as "Oh, my God, Designer X just included a size 8 model in his show!" rather than, "Oh, my God, apart from the one size-8 model, the rest of the girls looked like they were about to die from starvation!"

In one article from just a few months ago, the writer was obviously not distracted by the sight of minimal curves on a few faux-plus models, and thus accurately described the crisis:

Jutting collarbones weren't just easy to spot; they were almost ubiquitous. There were the hollowed-out necks striped with taut, rope-like tendons...There were the tiny upper arms...the stark, bony knees. In some cases, it was hard to fathom how the women could walk.

No one seems to have said a thing. After years of arguments about the extreme thinness of fashion models, after horror at the 2006 deaths of Luisel Ramos (who had fasted for several days), and Ana Carolina Reston (who died from an infection related to anorexia), after the editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, voiced her worries last year about models with "jutting bones and no breasts or hips", the debate seems to have gone eerily silent.

It's not clear why. Perhaps it's that the existence of a few healthier women has acted as a diversion . . .

Two realities must always be kept in mind:

1. The presence of a few faux-plus models on the runway doesn't change the fact that the industry still mandates, promotes, and normalizes an unhealthy and potentially even fatal standard of appearance for women. It still demands that women stave and torture themselves, just to accommodate an ugly, androgynous vision. This must be combated--now more than ever. Even if one believes that progress against size-bigotry is being made (a highly debatable premise in and of itself), then that should motivate an even greater resistance to fashion-industry's thin-supremacist mantra.

2. However many ills there are in the world, no one can address them all. The plus-size fashion industry has the chance to remedy this particular injustice--the fashion industry's size bigotry. If it does not do so, no one else will. Even if straight-size fashion is reformed, it will never promote the healthy, plus-size ideal of appearance (size 16 and up). Only full-figured fashion can do this. Rather than becoming distracted by a myriad of different causes, the plus-size industry should remain focussed on the one area where it can do the most good--the one problem that it alone can remedy.

Lexi Placourakis (Ford/Robert Black, Wilhelmina L.A.) showing off her gorgeous size 14/16 figure:

- Click to view larger