2 ... 2 ...Vogue vs. Logic
by Olivia
So farewell New York Fashion Week, and hello to Le Fwuh, as I am so wittily calling LFW. We kick off on Sunday with Paul Costelloe , the off-schedule kicks in on Monday, and Marc by Marc Jacobs sees us out next Friday. London has three free daily newspapers and all the national papers are based out of London, so naturally with Fashion Week around the corner the size zero debate is gearing up for round two and we are surrounded by headlines and debate.
Vogue (UK March issue) has a six-page feature on the issue, which prevaricates between admitting that the industry is deeply flawed, and pretending like everything's okay because fashion is their business, and it is a business .
On Wednesday we saw that even famous faces are not exempt from the problem. When one talks of models and eating disorders and dying from being too skinny, one thinks of the more anonymous models, ones that the fashion-obsessed might know of but Joe Public can't put a face or a name to. The average girl can't name a Luisel Ramos or an Ana Carolina Reston until they see the names in a news story on model deaths. However they can probably recognise, if not name, Natalia Vodianova, Daria Werbowy, Gemma Ward and Lily Cole because they have contracts for major perfume, beauty and high street campaigns that reach even the non-fashiony person. If 'name' models haven't the power or status to be whatever weight they care to be, what hope less powerful models? The only possible exception is Kate Moss, but she is an exception to just about every rule.
Kate will never die from being too skinny. She might die from: cocaine / Pete Doherty contracted STDs / exhaustion / overexposure / choking on her own vomit, but not from starving herself. She is by no means a healthy woman nor one with a high BMI. But she's also Kate Moss. Her nose is caving in; she lost every contract going after her nose candy parade; she is not looking good; she's phoning in her recent campaigns and yet...mo' money is not leading to mo' problems with La Moss. She's untouchable, and should any designer be fool enough to say "Katie, honey, lay off the pies would you sweets?" she could have them killed.
At a recent London College of Fashion debate chaired by Alexandra Shulman, featuring Roland Mouret and Lily Cole, the subject of "zoinks -- models sure are thin!" arose. Mouret explained that in a catwalk show, to ensure nothing distracts from the clothes, the clotheshorses have to be uniform in size and appearance. (Hence the identical hairstyles and make-up looks designed for a show.) I can understand Mouret's point, but why must that uniformity be based around thin?
There is a certain impact to be had with uniformity. Remember this?
Linda. Cindy. Naomi. Christy. Same size, same shape…supermodels. Just watching this video shows how strange and unattractive size zero really is. Viva la 1990s!
One of Vogue's arguments is that designers simply can't afford to make more than one size of each sample. Let me just dissect that for the bullshit that it is:
ONE. If you can barely afford to make samples, and are making just one of each look, why must the sample size of choice be a 2, 4, 6, 8 decision? Alberta Ferretti makes sample clothes in a UK 10, US 6. I'm fairly certain the fabric of society (and her clothes) has not been torn asunder by this and designers could go further and make 12s or 14s. (I'm talking in UK sizing here.)
TWO. If we're talking haute couture and the gown is sewn by blind seamstresses in Paris ateliers out of woven unicorn hair and gilded with the tears of orphans, perhaps you can only afford to make one.
But I've seen a lot of sample clothes. (See, stroked, coveted, contemplated stealing.) Very often, extraordinary design aside, they are ordinary. Worn by model after model after model and steam cleaned daily and flown hither and thither, within a few weeks they begin to disintegrate. They are made for two shows, a dozen shoots and a few personal appearances, not for sale.
Samples are sturdy, but -- crucially -- not precious. The finished clothes may end up costing $7,500 in the shops but the sample is not worth that money. Yes, it costs more to make two. But that cost is: (a) not twice the cost of the finished product when it becomes available to buy, because that's not how samples work, and (b) what cost is worth women's mental and physical health?
THREE. Since for most fashion houses the clothes do not make the profit -- it comes from the key-chains, the bags, the shoes, the perfumes -- losing a little money on a sample cannot reasonably make a difference. Launch a diffusion perfume and bang! money recouped.
FOUR. New designers are sponsored by enterprises like Lulu Kennedy's FashionEast or Topshop's NewGen. If corporations are prepared to pay to put on a show, they should be prepared to pay for as many sample sizes as it takes. Topshop makes a mint out of its associations with high fashion and new designers; they have the cash to splash to make larger samples. They owe it to their customers.
Vogue says: "Hollywood should ask itself about the body image it promotes and the size it insists upon; yes, magazines such as Heat are unhelpful; yes, there is a hypocrisy when newspapers moralise about the dangers of skinny models, only to print photographs of them at their skinniest, alongside purposefully unflattering pictures of celebrities who have put on weight". It goes on to point out that Vogue does not employ models who are under 16 and thus haven't reached their adult weight. In other words: look, we made a concession! And say, lookit all these other factors we can blame! Vogue rulez ok! Etc.
There is certainly more than one factor to blame, and we have all learned new ways of seeing, unconsciously or not, from magazines and television, that make certain healthy sizes look 'fat' to us, and we have to unlearn these. But aside from who to blame and why this is happening, I have another question. Not "why thin?" or "why fat?" or "who's to blame?". But this: why women? London Fashion Week begins tomorrow. Let's see if it brings any answers.
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