Size 12 girls are curvy to us, model agency boss tells MPs
MODELS as slim as a size 12 are considered ‘plus-size’ and placed in a special category, an agency boss admitted to MPs yesterday.
They are put in a ‘curve’ division of Models 1, a director of the agency said, and are urged to lose weight.
A parliamentary inquiry into the extreme pressures of the fashion world began as model Rosie Nelson handed a petition to Downing Street with nearly 114,000 signatures from those who support a ‘models law.’
Agency bosses, doctors, eating disorder experts and catwalk models all gave evidence to an all-party group of MPs on body image that is considering legislation to protect young women.
Karen Diamond, director of Models 1, the largest agency in Europe, defended many of their practices before MPs and said they would never work with a girl who was ill.
However she did agree that sample sizes created by designers need to be bigger and said that sometimes fashion houses demand measurements
‘Certain shape required’
from girls that are ‘bordering on the physically impossible’.
Some want girls with hips as small as 33 inches, she said.
Miss Diamond disclosed that the agency’s plus-size division starts at a size 12, but added: ‘We don’t call it plus size, we call it our curve division. It starts at size 12, so they are not big girls.’
She said there was a specific shape required if someone wants to make the catwalk. ‘There are certain measurements that are required to be a fashion model,’ she said. ‘I don’t think they are unreasonable or unachievable for somebody if they have the right body type.’
She insisted that it did not mean that the girls were unhealthy.
Miss Diamond also revealed that the agency recommends the book Lean and Clean by celebrity fitness trainer James Duigan.
She said: ‘It provides a lean physique. It is quite light on carbohydrates, it is not the most exciting but it is very healthy.’
When asked what they look out for when assessing the health of a model, she told the inquiry: ‘There’s a pallor to the skin. There is a lack of vitality, something in the eyes.
‘If someone is making themselves sick then there may be bad breath, the teeth may show signs of having acid from the stomach.
‘ If someone is extremely underweight they usually have a downy look on their face, and excessive body hair.’
But other speakers pointed out that these were extreme symptoms of someone whose illness had already developed to an alarming level.
Miss Nelson, 23, who also gave evidence to the inquiry, revealed she had seen a women who had not eaten faint on the catwalk, only to be instantly replaced by another very slim model.
GP Dr Ellie Cannon told MPs that teenagers had come to her practice seeking a prescription for a different type of contraceptive pill on the advice of their agency.
‘They have been told to do this so they don’t gain weight,’ she said. ‘And it’s often medically inappropriate.’
Anna Shillinglaw, founder of model agency MILK, shocked the inquiry when she said she has been sent pictures of girls as young as 12 for her consideration.
Caryn Franklin, a former presenter of the BBC’s Clothes Show, spoke about the ‘shame’ women are forced to feel if they turn up the day before a big fashion show and cannot fit into the sample size. ‘They are made to walk in their underwear if they can’t fit into the garment,’ she said.
She claimed the fashion industry had ‘numbed’ itself to images of very slender women and should accept more responsibility for the influence it has on the way women feel about themselves.
Miss Franklin suggested that a lack of maternal figures in the fashion industry is partly to blame for the apparent uncaring attitudes towards the young women.
‘If you look at the power hierarchy there is not enough maternal care taken of these young women ,’ she said.
‘ I am a mother of two daughters and when I look into the fashion industry there are not as many mothers as I would like to see in positions of power.’
The Commons group, which is chaired by Tory MP Caroline Noakes, will now compile a dossier of the evidence they have heard and make recommendations that are expected to be submitted in January.