REPORTER: ELIZABETH TADIC
London Fashion Week, and the beautiful people are out in force. For the serious fashionista, it's THE place to see and be seen. It might be glamorous, but it's impossible not to notice how thin many of the models are. And right now, behind the bright lights and make-up, debate is raging in the fashion world over the issue of ultra-skinny models. MAGGIE ALDERSON, FASHION WRITER: I just think it's too simplistic to blame fashion. Fashion is part of the problem, but it's not the whole problem. These models travel the world following the fashion shows, but last year there was disaster, young Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died from anorexia. Her death created a storm of bad publicity for the fashion world. One of Australia's leading designers, Alice McCall, is showing her latest collection here in London. But she says all the controversy about super-slim models is a media beat-up. ALICE MCCALL, DESIGNER: When we talk about this whole body image issue you are focusing about the problem. It's sensationalism, to a degree - Ooh, girl dies of anorexia. Ooh, another girl dies of anorexia. Ooh, headlines, headlines, sell papers. But backstage tonight the hot topic is stick-like, prepubescent models. MODEL 1: New York was really thin this season. Like, they were taking a lot of 14-, 15-year-old girls so everybody was super, super skinny. MODEL 2: Model has to be beauty, and the body, the shape. MODEL 1: And sexual too. MOLEL 2: Sexual - 14, 15, they have nothing. It's true. I think it's wrong. I think it's definitely wrong. MODEL 1: I think all the girls are a size 0 now because they're just young girls, they're all 15, 16 years old and everybody was that thin when they were 14 or 15 because they didn't start puberty yet. On the catwalk is Marina Jamieson from Spain. She started modelling 10 months ago, at 19 years of age. When I caught up with her later, she described just how cut-throat modelling can be. MARINA JAMIESON, MODEL: Most people don't know that you're out here, like, luchando, which is, like, battling the field to get to the top. Some agencies prefer younger girls like 13 or 14. The youngest girl I have seen was 11 and she was from Brazil. All of them are mostly chosen because they look fresh, and they're like virgins. They have virgin hair - like, nobody has ever touched their hair colour, or hair cut, or face. REPORTER: Is there a pressure to try and be thinner? MARINA JAMIESON: There is a bit of pressure because there is always going to be a skinnier model and a more beautiful model. Following the death of the Brazilian, everyone's talking of banning so-called size 0 models - approximately the size of a healthy 7-year-old. That's a problem for Marina, because she's size 0. MARINA JAMIESON: I saw in the newspaper yesterday that London decided to not use size 0 models like in Madrid. But I don't know if it's for sure or not. For this season, Marina needn't worry. Although the organisers of London Fashion Week insist no size 0 models will be used, there's no enforcement. The industry prefers self-regulation. So Marina can do her thing, and says skinny is beautiful. MARINA JAMIESON: If you can tell by their face that theyre sick, that is not good, they need hospital help. But so many girls are so skinny in the show and they're so beautiful, with their face It's just naturally lean. While they may be naturally lean, the World Health Organisation classifies many of these models as seriously underweight. It says anyone below a body mass index, or BMI, of 18 is too thin. Marina's BMI is just 16.97 - too thin for the World Health Organisation but acceptable here in London. But at the Madrid Fashion Week, Marina is banned from the catwalks because she's too skinny. Unlike London, the Madrid fashionistas are concerned about the message emaciated models send to Spanish teenagers. CUCA SOLANA, DIRECTOR MADRID FASHION WEEK: Models were getting skinnier and skinnier and we ourselves didnt realise until one day we said "Well, there's 6 million on television watching it, most of them youngsters, teenagers. We don't want these teenagers to think that excessive slimness is a model of beauty." After protests from parents that girls and young women were copying the models and developing eating disorders, the fashion week organisers, with the Madrid regional government, banned underweight females from the runway. But Spain's Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs has gone even further. Angeles Heras Caballero, the Director-General of Consumer Affairs, is in charge of measuring Spanish women from the age of 12 to 70 to find out the real shape of the Spanish woman. It's a national initiative. The plan is to measure about 10,000 women from across the country and the results will be released early next year. Theyre also collaborating with manufacturers and designers to determine a universal sizing system. ANGELES HERAS CABALLERO, DIRECTOR-GENERAL CONSUMER AFFAIRS, (Translation): We want to have models of beauty that are healthy for society and for women. And we want designers, stylists and society in general to understand that what is healthy is beautiful. That the real women with health is beautiful. It's obvious that the designers here have embraced models with curves. In the audience tonight is Agatha Ruiz de la Prada - one of the countrys top designers. AGATHA RUIZ DE LA PRADA, DESIGNER: It's very nice that Spain has been the first country in the world to take a decision as hard as this one. I think it's a very clever and very intelligent because the health is a hundred times more important than the image. I think we are in the period of history where image is being too much important and that is a very silly thing, no? Being a mother of a teenage daughter has helped shape Agatha's opinions on the debate. AGATHA RUIZ DE LA PRADA: Thats Cosima, my daughter. Shes 16. Thanks God she doesnt have problem with anorexia but some of her friends are beginning to have little obsessions about not eating and things like that. REPORTER: Why is that? COSIMA DE LA PRADA: Well, mostly because theyre really obsessed with fashion and they read lots of magazines. And you see in the media most people who are famous are really skinny and big designers only make clothes for small sizes so they feel that to get famous they need to get skinny. Madrids ban on skinny models has rocked the fashion world. Now Milan is measuring body mass index and demanding a medical certificate from models to prove they are healthy. MAGGIE ALDERSON: If we are going to try and fix this issue, and I hope that we can, we need to look at a much, much broader picture about why we value thinness to this degree. Fashion writer and novelist Maggie Alderson has travelled the international circuit for almost two decades. She says Western culture is at fault and we are all complicit in the thinness conspiracy. MAGGIE ALDERSON: We all have to look into ourselves, because we are all part of the problem. We all buy into it, so it's up to all of us to say no to Barbie, no to Disney, no to the Pussy Cat girls, no to the thin actresses in Hollywood. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, but any little steps we can take towards that should be good.
While society may have to address its obsessions, Maria Campoy is an example that the Spanish initiatives are paying off. She was rejected by Madrid last season for having a low body mass index so decided to beef up to fit the new guidelines. MARIA CAMPOY, (Translation): I didnt like being talked about everywhere, the talk about one of the models being rejected due to illness or being the wrong body mass index. Maria Campoy worked out in a gym for the first time in her life to build some muscle mass. She also felt that doing a nude photo shoot would prove she was healthy. MARIA CAMPOY, (Translation): Without clothes you cant fool anybody. When people questioned if I was sick or not, I couldnt cheat. But if there were doubts, the magazine supported me. I though it was a good idea and people liked them. REPORTER: Have you thought about travelling abroad like London Fashion Week, or Paris, where BMI is not an issue, it's not a problem, there's no limit, there's no ban? MARIA CAMPOY, (Translation): No. Spain is my country. Ive lived and worked in Milan but Im here now. Im working on other projects like TV projects. I accept the rules because in principle I support the move. Having embraced the new guidelines, Maria is now allowed back on the catwalks. But in London, her Spanish colleague Marina refuses to put on weight. She says she risks not getting gigs in other capitals if she tries fit the Spanish mould. MARINA JAMIESON: They have to understand that it's our job, and the reason that we are skinny is that we are hangers - like, our shoulders are hangers. It's very beautiful, a runway show with beautiful models and beautiful clothes, you know, but it's work, it's not like actual life. The chief executive of British Fashion Week is Hilary Riva. She's fed up with the skinny controversy. She says her industry is not to blame. HILARY RIVA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, LONDON FASHION WEEK: The whole size 0 thing has come from Hollywood and not from the catwalk. It's hard to see how Tinseltown can be blamed for stick-like models but Hilary doesn't want to deal with the issue. Her press secretary sitting next to her has emphatically warned me not to ask any questions on the topic. But I want to know what, if anything, the British Fashion Council plans to do about it. HILARY RIVA: Now what we have done is that weve discussed the issue with all of our designers and we've written to them and asked them to use only healthy models. But Australia's Alice McCall, one of the designers at London's fashion show doesn't know anything about the new guidelines. ALICE MCCALL: No, there were no guidelines set on me, and all the girls we chose for our show were fantastic and it's more of an instinctive thing for the models you choose. They walk in the door, and you pretty much know straight away if they're the girl for you, and it's not "Are they too skinny or not" it's "Are they a great girl or not." At Alice's London apartment, she's busy casting, and skinny models? Well, it's not really a problem. ALICE MCCALL: There's so many poignant issues, I think that the issue to do with starvation - or not starvation, but nutrition - we should be looking at perhaps Africa. There's where the problem is. Or Kenya, or Somalia, or countries where there's famine. I think, as far as I'm concerned, and casting models, it's really looking for great-looking girls that are beautiful and obviously slim. Despite Spain's position on ultra-thin models, it's going to take a lot more than a few guidelines to change the fashion world's addiction to their ideal of the perfect body. You've got a tiny little waist. It's a line, it's a silhouette and it's EMMA: Everyone's gone so crazy about it, which is what I suppose the tabloids do - they take it and run with it. Until then, it's on with the show.
ALICE MCCALL: But we might go on with the casting, so Emma, I'd love to see you do a walk. Reporter/Camera
ELIZABETH TADIC Producer
ASHLEY SMITH Editor
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS Fixer
DANIXA MONTERO Translator
FIONA MARTINELLI-SORIA
London Fashion Week, and the beautiful people are out in force. For the serious fashionista, it's THE place to see and be seen. It might be glamorous, but it's impossible not to notice how thin many of the models are. And right now, behind the bright lights and make-up, debate is raging in the fashion world over the issue of ultra-skinny models. MAGGIE ALDERSON, FASHION WRITER: I just think it's too simplistic to blame fashion. Fashion is part of the problem, but it's not the whole problem. These models travel the world following the fashion shows, but last year there was disaster, young Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died from anorexia. Her death created a storm of bad publicity for the fashion world. One of Australia's leading designers, Alice McCall, is showing her latest collection here in London. But she says all the controversy about super-slim models is a media beat-up. ALICE MCCALL, DESIGNER: When we talk about this whole body image issue you are focusing about the problem. It's sensationalism, to a degree - Ooh, girl dies of anorexia. Ooh, another girl dies of anorexia. Ooh, headlines, headlines, sell papers. But backstage tonight the hot topic is stick-like, prepubescent models. MODEL 1: New York was really thin this season. Like, they were taking a lot of 14-, 15-year-old girls so everybody was super, super skinny. MODEL 2: Model has to be beauty, and the body, the shape. MODEL 1: And sexual too. MOLEL 2: Sexual - 14, 15, they have nothing. It's true. I think it's wrong. I think it's definitely wrong. MODEL 1: I think all the girls are a size 0 now because they're just young girls, they're all 15, 16 years old and everybody was that thin when they were 14 or 15 because they didn't start puberty yet. On the catwalk is Marina Jamieson from Spain. She started modelling 10 months ago, at 19 years of age. When I caught up with her later, she described just how cut-throat modelling can be. MARINA JAMIESON, MODEL: Most people don't know that you're out here, like, luchando, which is, like, battling the field to get to the top. Some agencies prefer younger girls like 13 or 14. The youngest girl I have seen was 11 and she was from Brazil. All of them are mostly chosen because they look fresh, and they're like virgins. They have virgin hair - like, nobody has ever touched their hair colour, or hair cut, or face. REPORTER: Is there a pressure to try and be thinner? MARINA JAMIESON: There is a bit of pressure because there is always going to be a skinnier model and a more beautiful model. Following the death of the Brazilian, everyone's talking of banning so-called size 0 models - approximately the size of a healthy 7-year-old. That's a problem for Marina, because she's size 0. MARINA JAMIESON: I saw in the newspaper yesterday that London decided to not use size 0 models like in Madrid. But I don't know if it's for sure or not. For this season, Marina needn't worry. Although the organisers of London Fashion Week insist no size 0 models will be used, there's no enforcement. The industry prefers self-regulation. So Marina can do her thing, and says skinny is beautiful. MARINA JAMIESON: If you can tell by their face that theyre sick, that is not good, they need hospital help. But so many girls are so skinny in the show and they're so beautiful, with their face It's just naturally lean. While they may be naturally lean, the World Health Organisation classifies many of these models as seriously underweight. It says anyone below a body mass index, or BMI, of 18 is too thin. Marina's BMI is just 16.97 - too thin for the World Health Organisation but acceptable here in London. But at the Madrid Fashion Week, Marina is banned from the catwalks because she's too skinny. Unlike London, the Madrid fashionistas are concerned about the message emaciated models send to Spanish teenagers. CUCA SOLANA, DIRECTOR MADRID FASHION WEEK: Models were getting skinnier and skinnier and we ourselves didnt realise until one day we said "Well, there's 6 million on television watching it, most of them youngsters, teenagers. We don't want these teenagers to think that excessive slimness is a model of beauty." After protests from parents that girls and young women were copying the models and developing eating disorders, the fashion week organisers, with the Madrid regional government, banned underweight females from the runway. But Spain's Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs has gone even further. Angeles Heras Caballero, the Director-General of Consumer Affairs, is in charge of measuring Spanish women from the age of 12 to 70 to find out the real shape of the Spanish woman. It's a national initiative. The plan is to measure about 10,000 women from across the country and the results will be released early next year. Theyre also collaborating with manufacturers and designers to determine a universal sizing system. ANGELES HERAS CABALLERO, DIRECTOR-GENERAL CONSUMER AFFAIRS, (Translation): We want to have models of beauty that are healthy for society and for women. And we want designers, stylists and society in general to understand that what is healthy is beautiful. That the real women with health is beautiful. It's obvious that the designers here have embraced models with curves. In the audience tonight is Agatha Ruiz de la Prada - one of the countrys top designers. AGATHA RUIZ DE LA PRADA, DESIGNER: It's very nice that Spain has been the first country in the world to take a decision as hard as this one. I think it's a very clever and very intelligent because the health is a hundred times more important than the image. I think we are in the period of history where image is being too much important and that is a very silly thing, no? Being a mother of a teenage daughter has helped shape Agatha's opinions on the debate. AGATHA RUIZ DE LA PRADA: Thats Cosima, my daughter. Shes 16. Thanks God she doesnt have problem with anorexia but some of her friends are beginning to have little obsessions about not eating and things like that. REPORTER: Why is that? COSIMA DE LA PRADA: Well, mostly because theyre really obsessed with fashion and they read lots of magazines. And you see in the media most people who are famous are really skinny and big designers only make clothes for small sizes so they feel that to get famous they need to get skinny. Madrids ban on skinny models has rocked the fashion world. Now Milan is measuring body mass index and demanding a medical certificate from models to prove they are healthy. MAGGIE ALDERSON: If we are going to try and fix this issue, and I hope that we can, we need to look at a much, much broader picture about why we value thinness to this degree. Fashion writer and novelist Maggie Alderson has travelled the international circuit for almost two decades. She says Western culture is at fault and we are all complicit in the thinness conspiracy. MAGGIE ALDERSON: We all have to look into ourselves, because we are all part of the problem. We all buy into it, so it's up to all of us to say no to Barbie, no to Disney, no to the Pussy Cat girls, no to the thin actresses in Hollywood. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, but any little steps we can take towards that should be good.
While society may have to address its obsessions, Maria Campoy is an example that the Spanish initiatives are paying off. She was rejected by Madrid last season for having a low body mass index so decided to beef up to fit the new guidelines. MARIA CAMPOY, (Translation): I didnt like being talked about everywhere, the talk about one of the models being rejected due to illness or being the wrong body mass index. Maria Campoy worked out in a gym for the first time in her life to build some muscle mass. She also felt that doing a nude photo shoot would prove she was healthy. MARIA CAMPOY, (Translation): Without clothes you cant fool anybody. When people questioned if I was sick or not, I couldnt cheat. But if there were doubts, the magazine supported me. I though it was a good idea and people liked them. REPORTER: Have you thought about travelling abroad like London Fashion Week, or Paris, where BMI is not an issue, it's not a problem, there's no limit, there's no ban? MARIA CAMPOY, (Translation): No. Spain is my country. Ive lived and worked in Milan but Im here now. Im working on other projects like TV projects. I accept the rules because in principle I support the move. Having embraced the new guidelines, Maria is now allowed back on the catwalks. But in London, her Spanish colleague Marina refuses to put on weight. She says she risks not getting gigs in other capitals if she tries fit the Spanish mould. MARINA JAMIESON: They have to understand that it's our job, and the reason that we are skinny is that we are hangers - like, our shoulders are hangers. It's very beautiful, a runway show with beautiful models and beautiful clothes, you know, but it's work, it's not like actual life. The chief executive of British Fashion Week is Hilary Riva. She's fed up with the skinny controversy. She says her industry is not to blame. HILARY RIVA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, LONDON FASHION WEEK: The whole size 0 thing has come from Hollywood and not from the catwalk. It's hard to see how Tinseltown can be blamed for stick-like models but Hilary doesn't want to deal with the issue. Her press secretary sitting next to her has emphatically warned me not to ask any questions on the topic. But I want to know what, if anything, the British Fashion Council plans to do about it. HILARY RIVA: Now what we have done is that weve discussed the issue with all of our designers and we've written to them and asked them to use only healthy models. But Australia's Alice McCall, one of the designers at London's fashion show doesn't know anything about the new guidelines. ALICE MCCALL: No, there were no guidelines set on me, and all the girls we chose for our show were fantastic and it's more of an instinctive thing for the models you choose. They walk in the door, and you pretty much know straight away if they're the girl for you, and it's not "Are they too skinny or not" it's "Are they a great girl or not." At Alice's London apartment, she's busy casting, and skinny models? Well, it's not really a problem. ALICE MCCALL: There's so many poignant issues, I think that the issue to do with starvation - or not starvation, but nutrition - we should be looking at perhaps Africa. There's where the problem is. Or Kenya, or Somalia, or countries where there's famine. I think, as far as I'm concerned, and casting models, it's really looking for great-looking girls that are beautiful and obviously slim. Despite Spain's position on ultra-thin models, it's going to take a lot more than a few guidelines to change the fashion world's addiction to their ideal of the perfect body. You've got a tiny little waist. It's a line, it's a silhouette and it's EMMA: Everyone's gone so crazy about it, which is what I suppose the tabloids do - they take it and run with it. Until then, it's on with the show.
ALICE MCCALL: But we might go on with the casting, so Emma, I'd love to see you do a walk. Reporter/Camera
ELIZABETH TADIC Producer
ASHLEY SMITH Editor
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS Fixer
DANIXA MONTERO Translator
FIONA MARTINELLI-SORIA