(the young woman on the right died of symptoms relating to anexoria in 2006)
Sao Paulo, Brazil. A brown-haired teenage girl walks on to the stage at the local beauty contest. Below, her parents, wedged at the front of a cheering audience, clap enthusiastically as a judge slips a green and white sash over their daughter’s head and pronounces her the Queen of Jundiai, 1999. Her mother wasn’t surprised: ‘The other girls were podgy and had bottoms,’ she said later. ‘She won because she was slim and elegant.’

But it was on 14 November last year that she finally crossed over from being a successful catwalk model to appearing on the cover of every magazine and newspaper in Brazil, and making headlines around the globe. Not for her modeling, but for her agonizing death, attributed to ‘complications arising from anorexia’.

In a year in which both ’skinny chic’ (wearing oversized clothes on tiny body frames) and the American size 00 (an emaciated UK size two, or a waist the same as a typical seven-year-old’s) was the height of fashion in celebrity-land, South American Ana Carolina Reston’s (21) demise seems all the more poignant. Although anorexia isn’t the preserve of the fashion industry, it’s hardly surprising that Reston’s death has shone a spotlight on the way the business treats its models, and more significantly, on how destructive our current perception of female beauty can be.

There are no official studies to prove the link between the fashion industry and Hollywood and eating disorders, but many experts point to a clear correlation between the two. In a letter from 40 doctors at the Eating Disorders Service and Research Unit at King’s College London to the British Fashion Council last October, Professor Janet Treasure wrote: ‘There is no doubt there is cause and effect here. The fashion industry showcases models with extreme body shapes, and this is undoubtedly one of the factors leading to young girls developing disorders.’

Journalist Laura Ancona is not surprised: ‘I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen models vomiting in the toilets [at fashion events], or sniffing cocaine, or 13-year-old girls fainting because they’re not eating properly.’

Why is it that a lot of girls believe the only way to catch any guy’s attention is to wear low cut tops that push the limits, and booty shorts that are really just a knock off of Victoria Secret? By doing so, we ladies aren’t sending the message that we’re the hottest thing prowling the face of the planet. We’re instead saying, “Hey look at me! I don’t think I have anything attractive about me other than my cleavage, or my eager attempts to make you attracted to me by being aggressive.”

My purpose as a designer and as an individual is two fold-
We are here to change that “body obsessed” facet of fashion and change our understanding of what beauty really is.
More on that- tomorrow.

Sources- Washington Post article, Sep 11, 2007

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