a word about fashion week: child models
A show I had been looking forward to this FW was Whyred, as they often seem to produce classic and on point, timeless and effortlessly wearable clothing from season to season. This SS16 collection was no exception, with clean lines and cuts, sleek yet natural and fun hair styles – a solid mix of boxy minimalistic coats as well as tailored suits – all very Amanda-ish in my own humble opinion (because I clearly have great taste, duh).
All this I thoroughly enjoyed. What I didn’t enjoy as much, however, was the way they presented it. Or rather, this is an issue I have been having increasingly for a long time but Whyred sort of, involuntarily, spelled it out for me in a way no one else has so obviously before. And most fashion show goers won’t acknowledge this in the reviews because “it’s just how it is” , or “it’s not about that”, but I will:
the skinny ideal for models has been around for oh so long and I get that, it’s just what a model should look like. Tall and skinny. But the thing is, we’ve taken this SO far that barely any adult models will do anymore – it hasn’t been as obvious previously as it has been this season and it is getting so f*cked up, and out of hand, on another level.
When I was watching the Whyred show, I had a hard time seeing the clothes in a serious manner (as one should, obvi). My focus was, instead, on the fact that the models looked the way I did when I was 12 and had raided my mom’s closet before heading to school. This may also be because most of these models are not much older than that.
cont. after jump
If you go to any New Faces section of any model agency, you will be met by 12-15 year old girls and boys. Because clothes are made so tiny these days, the ideal has gotten SO SKINNY that not even the most model-like 20-year-old woman will get into them.
What’s made so obvious, too, is that they have started to compromise with the height criteria, which historically has been one of the most important factors for modeling: but if you only hire 12-15 year olds who are of the right level of skinny, yeah go figure: they ain’t gonna be that tall.
The result? A frightening combination of endearingly naive yet strikingly…true? This is where we are in terms of ideals now. No matter who we are, what we do, or what our age is – fashion has made it all clear, we’re all supposed to look like we’re 12.
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