Thin models a fuss over nothing - designer By ROBYN McLEAN and Reuters - The Dominion Post Friday, 2 February 2007
Top New Zealand fashion designer Denise L'Estrange-Corbet is fed up with mounting international concern at thin fashion models - telling critics to get over it.
An online ACNielsen survey of 25,000 people in 45 countries, issued yesterday before the start of the international fashion season, reveals the rising backlash against thin models is a worldwide issue.
New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and Australia were the most critical of the fashion industry, with as many as 94 per cent of those polled believing models were too thin.
But L'Estrange-Corbet, owner of top Kiwi label World, said the debate was old hat. She had no plans to use bigger models just to be politically correct.
"The whole point of being a fashion model is to be thin," she said.
"The job of a model is to make clothes look amazing. The thinner you are the more fabulous you look - that's not going to change.
"When I'm paying them to model my clothes, that's what I'm paying for.
"I'm paying for them to keep themselves thin, but not stupidly thin."
L'Estrange-Corbet said designers should not be expected to apologise for wanting to sell clothes.
"I'm not going to come out and say 'It's got to change' because it's not going to change. The thin girls sell the clothes."
The survey also found a link between perceptions of thinness among women and a country's quality of life.
Concern at thin models has prompted the Italian Government to combine with the fashion industry to fight anorexia.
A code of conduct requires models to show medical proof they do not suffer from eating disorders and calls for bigger sizes to be added to fashion collections.
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