My university is located on exhibition road, so named because it houses three of the main London musea. One of these is the Natural History Museum. Normally this magnificent building radiates a stately tranquility, but not this week... something eerie is going on there.The liveless skeletons that are the museum's regular tenants have had to relinquish the limelight to other, slightly more lively, skeletons. Outside these grimfaced carcasses rattle their bones dressed in the pelts and feathers of the dead ones inside. Up and down they walk, looking without seeing.
This week the NHM has been hosting London Fashion Week. All over the papers are images of walking sticks disguised as humans wearing dresses no real person can ever fit. Unlike their Italian counterparts the organisers of LFW have refused to ban the so-called 'size 0' models. Instead, they have introduced compulsory health checks for models. Although I am by no means trying to ridicule the seriousness of eating disorders, I can't help but wonder who we are really trying to protect here... In a country where underweight people aren't exactly the biggest problem, the whole debate seems a bit skewed. Maybe the rationale is that, instead of getting the fatties to slim down, it's easier to pick on the skinny girls so they won't make us feel so bad about ourselves?
2 comments:
Interesting analysis. :)
Yet it seems there are problems on both sides, isn't it? And battling one doesn't have to preclude battling the other.
On the other hand, I wonder if this is any help. Apparently we like the way these size 0 models look -- why else would they be used to advertise clothes? -- and the only reason we don't want them to be too skinny is not concern for their health, but fear that others will follow their example. This emphasizes that the skinnier a model is, the prettier she is, and the skinniest types aren't rejected because they look awful, but because they fall outside some arbitrary cutoff. How is that anything but a signal to 15-year-old girls to chase prettiness to its skinniest limit?
It's like saying: study hard, but don't get more than a 9 out of 10 on your exam, 'cause that's illegal. (A 10 is better, but it will cause envy.)
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