OK, Mr. Lifshitz: Why Must Models Be So Skinny?

As I eagerly await my copy of the November Glamour—the one with the naked plus-sized models—I’ve been following news stories about models: There’s the Polo Ralph Lauren dismissal and photoshopping of Fillipa Hamilton controversy, and Brigitte magazine’s announcement that it was replacing skinny models with “real” women who have “identities” rather than “protruding bones.” Karl Lagerfeld has been slammed for his hilariously concise and snobby response.

Since the Polo story broke, I’ve been eagerly awaiting an explanation, or even just a theory, as to how the model ideal got so extreme to begin with—I mean, why it is that models are required to be so thin and young and tall? Who is in charge of this? Casting directors? Advertisers? Editors? Finally, yesterday on the Today Show segment about the Polo mishigas, I was hoping that Cosmo editor-in-chief Kate White might offer an insider’s explanation on the whole super-duper-skinny model thing. Instead, she merely passed the buck:

It really starts with the sample clothes, because they've down-sized—they're now like a size 2 or 4. To some degree, it relates to the Kate Moss era. Before then, supermodels like Cindy Crawford and Christy Brinkley, they were really curvy. But they got skinnier and skinnier, and the clothes got smaller, and so it creates this cycle where you have to fit in the clothes to get the job, and then the models get smaller and that's who we have to use in fashion stories.

Fashion folks are not the most self-reflective lot. But surely the editor-in-chief of a major women’s magazine would feel compelled to answer the simple question: Why do models have to be so goddamn skinny? My first instinct is to tack the "heroin chic" preference by image-makers to two major cultural events: the fall of the Iron Curtain and the mainstreaming of gay culture in the wake of the AIDS epidemic.

I’ll be pondering this as responses trickle in about the Glamour spread. In the meantime, if you have any theories as to why standards of beauty got to be this way—that is, drastically skinny and young and tall—please let me know.

 

Tags: brigitte magazine, cosmopolitan, fillipa hamilton, glamour, karl lagerfeld, photoshop, plus-size models, polo

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Erika Kawalek is a New York-based journalist and author of the forthcoming fashion chronicle, Ragpicker.

Comments

Runway fashion vs fashion magazines

By: blue lucia | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 13:47

Seems to me a big part of the issue is the conflation of high fashion modeling with magazine modeling. Fashion that truly is in the realm of art -- the avant garde and envelope pushing "ideas" pieces that go down the most exclusive runways -- looks great on clothes-hanger models. And in that context, I have no problem with designers looking for tall, flat models who will minimally distort the idealized lines of the clothing.
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But "fashion" magazines that feature ready-to-wear clothes that ordinary women can actually buy in regular stores, lines like Polo Ralph Lauren, really ought to use models that bear some reasonable resemblance to actual women. Because I don't give a damn how great the garment looks on the rack if it looks rumpled and ill-fitting when it is on my body, draped over my hourglass curves under the fitting room lights. If a ready-to-wear designer can't bear a mere size 4 model "distorting" the lines of his clothes, who the heck does he think is actually buying and wearing them???

Fashion ideals don't change that much

By: goffers | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 13:40

I just looked at fashion plates from 1920s to now. The model size really doesn't seem to change in that time. Skinny young pretty girls doesn't seem to have a season in fashion.

My take...

By: Sehmket | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 12:49

My thought is that when one reason why doesn't jump out on myriad topics... there isn't one reason why something is the whay it is.

I suspect that the shift from using skinny, although curvy and more or less normal models in the '40s and early '50s started shifting with the more avant-gaurd and fringe groups in the '50s and '60s. Mainstream was the wholesome girl-next-door - who's normal and curvy. So to be different designers have to look for something different. You can't go for fat, there's too much variety to really make the clothes in a consistant mannar, so you have to go for really, really skinny. They started realizing that they could make the clothes hang in a really cool way by using curve-less models, and Twiggy just accentuated and popularized that. Within a decade or two, the houses that used to be cutting edge are more mainstream, but still using the same type of model, and the the new houses have to use simmilar models to match up. The majority of models and agents just want to fit in (different may mean breaking into a huge opening... but probably means getting no jobs), so the agents have shifted to hiring really skinny girls - they're the ones who get the most jobs and the most commisions, afterall.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's no "magic bullet" answer to the question of why models are so skinny. It has to do with a lot of things - money, history, the variety in curvy girls, the grey line between clothes as clothes and clothes as art - and I don't think there's ever going to be a clear reason on it. But that doesn't mean it's not something that can't be changed. My ideal fashion spread would be a monthly feature where they took the same fashion trend and applied it to six or ten girls of different body sizes (real girls - come use me and my friends! Just let us keep the clothes!), showing how if you're hippy, you can do X type of Jeans, you just need Y type of belt or top or whatever.

a better model

By: kates68 | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 10:21

maybe Sony or Honda could design a robot that could look good in these conceptual garments and walk down a runway...

then don't pretend it's clothing

By: kates68 | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 10:17

I understand that clothes are designed to look good on hangars so people buy them, hoping they will look good on them too. But when garments are abstracted as art, shouldn't we just acknowledge that they are fiber art and not intended as clothing for humans to wear? If they don't looks good on humans anyway, just leave the models out and use hangars or stick manequins or something.

Well, I'd conjecture that the

By: you know it is | Thu, 10/15/2009 - 22:04

Well, I'd conjecture that the reason standards of female beauty include youth is just plain old biology.

I'm interested in this item's reference initially to traits the fashion industry wants in female models, and then the reference at the end to "standards of beauty". Note that these don't have to be the same thing. That is, as a matter of practice, standards of beauty (at least in the opinion of women) do seem to be in fact exemplified by fashion models, but it's not like this has to be the case. It's true the fashion industry can control what the fashion models look like, but I don't think it can take full responsibility for the fact that women in general then adopt that look as a standard of beauty.

Anyhow, any standard of beauty by its nature must be difficult to attain. No matter what criteria you use to rank people, by definition only 1% of people can be in the top 1% of the ranking, only 10% can be in etc. So no matter what standard you choose, the highest levels are going to be inaccessible to virtually everyone.

Costume/Clothing Designer's Perspective

By: mahkara | Thu, 10/15/2009 - 17:54

(I do both)

The reason, ideally, someone making clothing wants very tall, very thin models is that clothes look better on them. Quite frankly, any kind of buldge (fat, breasts, hips, a butt) distorts the line that clothing was "designed" for, particularly avante garde clothing. So while someone who is, oh, say 6'2" and weighs 100 lbs. maybe hideously ugly, the clothing will look GREAT on her. So most designers, given full freedom, would prefer to have the smallest sample size plausible (i.e. a 2 or 4) on the tallest girl possible.

When women then go endlessly about how "oh, how sad it is that we have this unrealistic idea of beauty", I almost feel the need to ask why anyone is looking at a magazine for "realistic beauty". Fashion is not ABOUT realism. It's about fantasy. Half the "art photos" are photoshopped to death, anyway. (And youth = fewer wrinkles = less to photoshop.) So why base your concept of beauty on this?

That said, as a consumer, I would LOVE to be able to buy clothing that I saw on someone my size (a more realistic size 6) because, hey, something that looks awesome on a size two may not on me. And I want clothing to make ME look good, not ME to make the CLOTHING look good. And I'm absolutely awed by designers I know who can make everyone look awesome, even the dumpy middle aged types.

I guess my feeling is that it's OK for truly avante garde fashion designers to do what they want. It's not meant to be bought by people, it's meant to stand as art. And, eh, while hangers would probably be a better medium, at the same time, whatever.

But when it's supposedly "wearable fashion" like that of Ralph Lauren, I'd love to see it on a variety of body types, and see the models with more normal body types. Maybe not quite the average size 14 on someone 5'4", but maybe someone who was 5'8" and wore a size 6-8...