PARIS (AFP) – Despite claims that the fashion industry is embracing curvier bodies, the data suggests it could be guilty of what one expert calls “fat-washing”.
While a handful of plus-size models such as Paloma Elsesser have grabbed media attention in recent years, the figures shows they remain a vanishingly small minority.
Vogue Business looked at 9,137 outfits unveiled during 219 shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris last season and found that 0.6 per cent were plus-size – defined as US size 14 or above, which is actually the average size for a woman in the United States – and only 3.8 per cent were size 6-12.
This means 95.6 per cent of outfits presented were in US size 0-4.
Paolo Volonte, who teaches sociology of fashion in Milan, said brands use a few curvy models to deflect criticism.
“It’s ‘fat-washing’,” he told AFP, comparing it to criticisms of cynical “green-washing” by which the industry is accused of making empty climate pledges.
“They use curvy models in their shows to show inclusivity but in fact this is to preserve and maintain a system based on the tyranny of the thin ideal,” Volonte said.
Ekaterina Ozhiganova, a 20-year-old model and law student, said luxury brands simply “refuse to represent normal people”.
Medium-sized women “are often told either to lose weight… or to push themselves up to XL”, she told AFP. “Neither is healthy.”
Ozhiganova’s advocacy group, Model Law, carried out a survey that found nine out of 10 models felt pressure to change their bodies, more than half on a regular basis.
“It’s very hard for them to talk about,” she said. “If you complain, everyone will just say: ‘Darling, that’s the job.’”
How it became “the job” is a question of history.
Volonte said the obsession with thinness dates back to the birth of industrial production techniques.
Previously, designers made clothes specific to individuals. In the mass production era, they use small templates which they scale up for larger sizes.
This only works up to a certain size, however, after which fat and muscle can change the shape of bodies in more complex ways.
“It is much more expensive to produce and sell clothing on higher sizes and requires more expertise,” said Volonte.
At the same time, thinness became firmly associated with wealth – having the time and money to work on your body – an aspiration that has been deeply entrenched by advertising and the day-to-day practices of the fashion industry.
There have been efforts to change things since the early 2000s when fears spread that size-zero models were encouraging anorexia in young people.
Since 2017, France requires models to pass medical examinations, while the country’s two biggest luxury conglomerates, LVMH and Kering, signed charters vowing to stop using size-zero models.
But with sizes varying from one brand to the next, this is hard to enforce.
Designers are as trapped in the status quo as everyone else.
Elite couturier Mohammad Ashi said discrimination based on race and gender has been fairly well tackled in fashion, but shape is tricky.
“We’re not trying to avoid it, but from an industrial point of view, we can’t produce a plus-size dress. We sell what we show and I know our clients personally. It’s just business,” he told AFP.
Couturier Julien Fournie has used pregnant models and his favourite model, Michaela Tomanova, has “six centimetres everywhere more than the others”.
But he said, “fashion remains fashion… It’s a fantasy world and that will never change fundamentally”.
‘ONE DAY I SAID STOP’
Meanwhile, Maud Le Fort won’t be seen on the runways of Paris Fashion Week, which kicked off yesterday, having chosen her health over a career on the catwalk.
Now in her 30s, Le Fort came to Paris when she was 18 to pursue a career in modelling and was immediately labelled a “commercial model” – that is, not thin enough for the top-end fashion shows.
“I had a 36.6 centimetres (cm) waist, 85cm chest so I was ‘curvy’,” she told AFP.
“In Paris, I was told that I was only going to do lingerie and perhaps very commercial things, but not much fashion.”
Le Fort refused to let go of her dream and worked to shed the little weight she carried – though without any exercise since muscles are as unwelcome as fat on the catwalk.
“I was measured almost every day. And the more weight I lost, the more congratulations I received,” she said.
She got herself down to 49 kilogrammes (kg) despite being 1.81 metres (m) tall and managed to land gigs for Armani, Balmain, Jean Paul Gaultier and Yohji Yamamoto.
But then she realised it was madness.
“One day, I said ‘stop’. I’m going to eat, I’m going to do sport,” said Le Fort.
Now in her 30s, she does theatre classes and therapy in a bid to gain self-confidence and put the years of depression and eating disorders behind her.
“I still don’t completely accept my body the way it is,” she said. “I do not have a completely healthy relationship with food.”
These days, she does mostly photo sessions where the pressure is much lower.
But it also bothers her to see how much her photos are retouched, saying it creates unrealistic expectations for young girls.
“It’s absolutely shocking and it’s sad,” she said.
Some are blessed with a situation that allows them to escape the torment.
Sophie (not her real name) is a 22-year-old medical student in Paris. She works as a commercial model and dreams of the catwalk, but knows she has a longer-term career to fall back on and is not about to sacrifice her health.
“Fashion is not an environment that I would recommend to someone who has psychological weaknesses,” she said.
“If this was all I did for a living, I would be constantly worried.
“For me, if I go on the catwalk, that’s cool, but if I don’t get the job, too bad.”
