Collective gasp from the size queens. The fact is, 15 years ago, size zero and 2 did not exist in American clothes. We also occasionally made some 00s.
I can put models in size 2 to 10 in all our fashion shows : It just depends on the maker of the clothes. She is 17 years old. It is strategic. There were guidelines, but not now. A size 14 is now an 8, [resulting in such sizes as] a double or triple zero. I mean, how useful is that for people? Hollywood stylists roll with it. Vanity sizing has been a time-honored tradition! At any rate, I have a tailor on every fitting. Of course, none of this is lost on retailers.
We are often asking designers to go above And now with Internet shopping as prevalent as it is, size ranges should standardize. Not every store is as democratically minded as Neiman Marcus is. One fashion insider went in looking for a Chloe blouse in an 8 and got the kind of looks reserved for a shoplifter. The French and the British are pretty true to size. It's a precarious subject, and there are many unpleasant truths beneath the surface that are not discussed or acknowledged publicly.
When I first began dealing with models in the late s we were generally drawing from a pool of local girls, who were naturally willowy and slim, had glowing skin, shiny hair and loads of energy. They ate lunch, sparingly for sure, but they ate.
They were not skin and bones. I don't think anyone believes that a model can eat anything she wants, not exercise and still stay a flawless size 8 except when they are very young , so whatever regime these girls were following was keeping them healthy. But I began to recognise the signs that other models were using different methods to stay svelte. I was dressing a model from the US on a beauty shoot, and I noticed scars and scabs on her knees.
When I queried her about them she said, nonchalantly: "Oh yes. Because I'm always so hungry, I faint a lot. On another shoot I was chatting to one of the top Australian models during lunch.
She had just moved to Paris and was sharing a small apartment with another model. I asked her how that was working out. That the ideal body shape used as a starting point for a collection should be a female on the brink of hospitalisation from starvation is frightening.
The longer I worked with models, the more the food deprivation became obvious. Cigarettes and Diet Coke were dietary staples. Sometimes you would see the tell-tale signs of anorexia, where a girl develops a light fuzz on her face and arms as her body struggles to stay warm.
I have never, in all my career, heard a model say "I'm hot", not even if you wrapped her in fur and put her in the middle of the desert. Society is understandably concerned about the issues surrounding body image and eating disorders, and the dangerous and unrealistic messages being sent to young women via fashion journals.
When it comes to who should be blamed for the portrayal of overly thin models, magazine editors are in the direct line of fire, but it is more complex than that. The "fit" model begins the fashion process: designer outfits are created around a live, in-house skeleton. Few designers have a curvy or petite fit model.
These collections are then sent to the runway, worn by tall, pin-thin models because that's the way the designer wants to see the clothes fall. There will also be casting directors and stylists involved who have a vision of the type of woman they envisage wearing these clothes. For some bizarre reason, it seems they prefer her to be young, coltish, 6ft tall and built like a prepubescent boy. It is too simplistic to blame misogynistic men, although in some cases I believe that criticism is deserved.
There are a few male fashion designers I would like to personally strangle. But there are many female fashion editors who perpetuate the stereotype, women who often have a major eating disorder of their own.
They get so caught up in the hype of how brilliant clothes look on a size 4, they cannot see the inherent danger in the message. It cannot be denied that visually, clothes fall better on a slimmer frame, but there is slim, and then there is scary skinny. Despite protestations by women who recognise the danger of portraying any one body type as "perfect", the situation is not improving. There was a period in the last three years when some of the girls on the runways were so young and thin, and the shoes they were modelling so high, it actually seemed barbaric.
I would watch the ready-to-wear shows on the edge of my seat, apprehensive and anxious. I'm not comfortable witnessing teen waifs almost on the point of collapse. After the shows, the collection is made available for the press to use for their shoots.
These are the samples we all work with and they are obviously the size of the model who wore them on the runway. Thus, a stylist must cast a model who will fit into these tiny sizes. And they have become smaller since the early 90s. We've had couture dresses arrive from Europe that are so minuscule they resemble christening robes. Another woman pointed out that sizes often seem completely arbitrary from brand to brand, and not just for jeans.
It's just frustrating if you try clothes on in person, but it'd be maddening if you were trying to buy online. American Eagle offers women's jeans from sizes 00 to 20, as seen in their sizing chart below. A quick comparison to other brands reveals the lack of size standardization across stores. While size 4 jeans at American Eagle have a
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