As New York Fashion Week came to a close on Friday, the baton was passed on to London who is next to display some of the best spring and summer 2007 European collections. London is expected to showcase the most cutting-edge and exciting runway shows of all the fashion capitals this year. But the highly known fashion district isn't starting off it's fashion week without controversy. The issues have begun and people are talking about just how far society is willing to go to portray a healthy image to young audiences.
Issues began to arise when the Mayor of Milan said she was going to ban women with a body mass index of less than 18 (which is considered to be officially underweight) from modeling in any of the shows this year. Her decision came as a result of the Spanish who recently introduced restrictions on certain models performing in the Madrid fashion show.
The real controversy began when Stuart Rose, head of Marks & Spencer and the chairman of London Fashion Week refused to ban models on account of their weight. He claimed that designers should be given creative freedom to choose their own models and that it's not the weight that matters, its the way the models look.
Should Models be Banned for Being too Small?
Although the answer to this question is based strictly on opinion, I am pretty sure my opinion is correct. So here's what I think - How can you ban someone for being underweight as it is seen as unhealthy and yet you cannot ban someone for being overweight and unhealthy. The decision should be up to the designer. Completely banning certain models from working because of their size is just wrong.
What if the tables were turned and a designer wanted to use larger women in the runway shows? What if the Mayor of Milan decided to ban larger women from modeling because it appeared to be unhealthy? Well I can tell you what would happen - people would throw their hands up in anger and tell her that she was putting too much focus on the way people look and not enough focus on the clothing, right? They would also tell her that its unfair to refuse someone work because of the way they look - but these things only apply when critizing people for being too big - apparently being too small is considered wrong!
It's completely unfair to ban a certain group of people from modeling unless they plan on doing it across the board and banning anyone who isn't of "average" size. And what is average size anyways? What's beautiful? Oh right, everyone has their own opinion. So let's let the designers choose who will look good in their clothes - let's not make their decisions for them!
Banning women from working because they are underweight (which is apparently an unhealthy image) is no different from banning women who are overweight from modeling because they're giving off an unhealthy image. But we wouldn't ban larger women from modeling because it wouldn't be acceptable to treat people that way, right? So why is it acceptable to do it to smaller women? Isn't that discrimination - and isn't discrimination against the law?
