A thin model wears Jean Paul Gaultier during the 2015 Haute Couture Spring-Summer collection fashion show in Paris in January. Photo: AFP
The scene was an underground auditorium in Paris’ famous Louvre and my unabashed rubbernecking was causing much embarrassment for my fashion veteran colleague, who had scored me a ticket to the prêt a porter parade.
As celebrities in dark glasses sashayed nonchalantly to their prime viewing places, I almost toppled over seats trying to get a gander, only to be pulled back by the Dior sleeve of my companion, trying to restrain me as a mother would a cordial-fuelled kid in a lolly shop. I was in glamour central and the first rule of glamour central appeared to be, don’t notice glamour central.
But the atmosphere was electric and I was feeling its full voltage as the lights dimmed, the music started and the first model appeared silhouetted against the klieg lights. At first I thought it must be smoke and mirrors, no woman of that height could be that thin. But she was.
I audibly gasped in horror as I watched said stick begin to move, all praying mantis legs, protruding ribs and twig arms, a chicken-bone carcass the like of which I’d only ever seen in news bulletins showing food queues in Eritrea. But there she was, teetering in torturously high heels before me, the harsh lights emphasising the deep hollow pits where her cheeks should have been and illuminating the soft covering of fuzz on her face. I had seen such facial hair once before, when interviewing an anorexic in hospital for a story, and knew it to be the telltale sign of someone whose body is so lacking in nutrients, it has sprouted a soft down in a final attempt to keep it warm. I felt sick to my stomach. What I was seeing on the runway wasn’t cool. It was cruel.
As someone who worked in and edited women’s magazines for near on two decades, I’d seen a lot of fashion parades and a lot of thin girls in them. But nothing can prepare you for the sight of a couture catwalk model in a Paris show. It’s true what they say about the camera adding 10 pounds. So, take that amount away from a cadaver, and you’ll have an idea of just how alarmingly emaciated these girls are.
It seems, at last, the French government has finally got the picture and seen it ain’t pretty too. Last week, lawmakers, in a move backed by President Francois Hollande’s government, proposed an anti-anorexia bill, that would see underweight models banned from French catwalks. The amendments would mean managers of modelling agencies could face jail for employing unhealthily thin women and would force agencies to require medical certificates from models showing that their Body Mass Index or BMI (height v weight ratio) is at least 18, or about 55kg for a height of 1.75m (Australia’s National Heart Foundation cites a BMI of less than 18.5 as underweight). A BMI of 16 is considered the famine level. Breaching the law would be punishable with a fine of up to €75,000 ($A100,000) and six months imprisonment.
The proposals, which follow the BMI standards already imposed by Italy, Spain, Belgium, Chile and Israel, were tabled by Socialist MP and distinguished neurologist, Olivier Véran, who says: “It is intolerable to promote malnutrition and to exploit people commercially who are endangering their own health.”
To get some idea of what a low BMI looks like, in 2012, Sasha Martin, from web magazine Unleashed, calculated those of some prominent Victoria’s Secret models. Miranda Kerr came in underweight with a rating 16.8; Rosie Huntington-Whiteley 17.1, and Erin Heatherton 16.2. Kate Moss was a low 16.8. In reality, these models are still bigger than the models on the Paris catwalk. Doctors universally credit low BMIs with loss of menstruation and infertility issues, amongst other ailments.
Since the French stance was reported, there have been a lot of arguments that it’s discrimination against naturally slender women, that the obese should be banned as well, that the BMI is a flawed measure, that the laws are unenforceable and, as such, lip service. And I say, pull your heads in people! There are thousands of girls suffering severe eating disorders and millions crippled with low self-esteem because they can’t attain a “fashion” frame.
We have to start somewhere to address this issue and as such I applaud the French initiative, flaws and all, because it is France, and to an arguably lesser extent Italy, that sets the stupid sample sizes catwalk models are starving themselves to fit in to in the first place. These tiny sizes set the look that many ordinary women aspire to. Up the sample sizes and girls get to eat again (something other than tissues, as former Australian Vogue editor Kirsty Clements exposed is practice pre-catwalk in her book, The Vogue Factor).
Let’s give these French laws a fighting chance and let’s get the Australian government to follow suit (are you listening our Minister for Women Tony Abbott? Or the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister assisting …oh you know, Michaelia Cash?). Because this issue has been talked about ad nauseum but acted on ad hoc. I’ve been writing about it for some 20-odd years and this is the first time I’ve been able to cite positive action. Let’s not poo-poo the French incentive. It may turn out to be mere merde, but what’s currently happening isn’t chic, it’s sick.
Age columnist Wendy Squires is a journalist, editor and author.
Twitter: @Wendy_Squires