Reports from yesterday's CFDA panel on eating disorders were uniformly underwhelming. It was as if everyone in the room recognized that the panel was a PR move to take the heat off an industry that fosters unhealthy practices. Robin Givhan, from the Washington Post, offers the most withering assessment, as she speaks to the obvious misogyny of some designers, who, under the rubric of "creative license", are able to get away with it:
Saturday afternoon, designer Alexandre Herchcovitch sent a group of dresses and tops down his runway at Bryant Park that looked like they had been constructed from black plastic garbage bags. No one laughed. No one's mouth curled into a sneer of dismissal. Instead, the crowd remained respectfully silent. If a designer would like to publicly ponder the notion of "woman as compost," the industry will give him his space. Fashion is fueled by creative expression, so goes the established thinking. To stifle that freedom is to hinder the industry's growth.
No one's health is likely to be damaged by an ugly dress. But the disappointing panel discussion, hosted by the Council of Fashion Designers of America Monday morning, on eating disorders among models and the pressures on them to maintain a reed-thin figure, was not so benign. The smartest voice in the room belonged to the model Natalia Vodianova, best known for her work with Calvin Klein, who was seated in the audience. She talked plainly about her dysfunctional relationship with food, her unhealthy weight loss and the negative feedback from designers when she regained some of that weight.
The four panelists seemed intent on thanking the CFDA for the opportunity to participate in the event and offering reassurance that they were not out to inhibit the designers' creative freedom. No one addressed the responsibilities that come with such boundless artistic expression. No one focused on the core issue of why designers even want to use models who are so thin that their appearance raises fears about ill-health. The presentation hit rock bottom when the physical fitness trainer and panelist David Kirsch offered: "I'd rather see a healthy size 4 than an unhealthy size 0."
Fashion is a business that is willing to put up with a lot. Too much, maybe. No idea is dismissed as being too ludicrous.
Further coverage of the panel:
Models Discuss Anorexia over Pastry - Salon.com
Looking Beyond the Runway for Answers on Underweight Models - NY Times
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