Is Posh shortsighted when it comes to size?
What could she have been thinking? Victoria Beckham posted some pictures of her new VB Eyewear collection with a cheery greeting to her millions of followers. “Back to work! Start the year with the Spring Summer 2018 collection inspired by 1970s retro classics and updated for a feathery-light, modern look.”
Was designer Posh even aware of how few people would be looking at her £265 designer glasses? The eye stalls immediately on the model wearing them.
A giraffe-tall young woman who looks so perilously thin, even when fully clothed, that her body could be made from coat hangers. Her legs no thicker than a normal woman’s arm. It’s a distressing sight. Even allowing for a naturally slender frame, 29-year-old Giedre Dukauskaite looks like she needs to be seeking medical attention, not posing for photographs that will be seen by impressionable children.
As Dr Amanda Foreman, historian and author of The World Made by Women, tweeted: “A model who looks like a teenager with severe anorexia is the face for the #Vbeyeware 2018 summer collection. This is the reason why every study on social media and advertising calls the threat to young girls’ mental health ‘dire’.” Beckham has form when it comes to using skinny catwalk models, although she signed up for the “Healthy is Beauty” campaign which saw designers pledging to not use skeletal girls in their shows.
I interviewed the Spice Girls back in the Nineties, and while the other band members tucked into dinner, Posh toyed with a plate of peas and vinegar.
Choosing to keep herself sparrow-thin is one thing, but Victoria Beckham received an OBE last year from Prince William. Like it or not, she is a role model with the ability to shape attitudes – and young bodies. With that come responsibilities. She should start by withdrawing her dangerous, shockingly short-sighted Eyewear campaign.