Dying to be Beautiful

Spain has certainly caused a stir in the fashion world with its ban on too-thin models in an upcoming fashion show in Madrid. You can read about it in my article on this blog. New reports indicate that up to 30% of models were eliminated based on their low BMI scores.

What I found didn’t get much press was the untimely and sad death of a 22 year old Uruguayan model, briefly mentioned in a news article about the Spanish boycott. Luisel Ramos, who had been advised she could really make it big as a model if she only dropped some weight, reportedly starved herself for a period of up to two weeks prior to a show and suffered heart failure after stepping off the runway in Montevideo on August 2, 2006. Medical personnel called to the scene were unable to revive her. Her father told police she had eaten only leafy vegetables and Coke for weeks prior to the fashion show appearance.

I tried to find more on this sad story but nearly every article I found was either on a blog or on a South American website. I foun

Italy Bans Skinny Models

Italy has produced some of the most famous beauties that the world and Hollywood has ever seen. Film stars such as Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren represented the sultry and voluptuous woman.

Now Italy joins Spain in regulating the health and weight of fashion models. The Italian Fashion Chamber has teamed with the Italian government to produce a code that would ensure that models are healthy by requiring that models produce medical proof that they do not have an eating disorder. It would also ban models younger than 16. Interestingly, the code asks for fashion houses to add larger sizes to their collections.

In the photos of these famous Italian beauties it is clear that their clothes were designed to accentuate their assets. What you notice about clothes on fashion models today is that these sorts of assets would get in the way. The clothes seem designed to be draped over the stick figure clothes hanger that is the model. Which, I wonder, would men consider to be more attractive?

It would be wonderful if this code could be adopted internationally. It could save the lives of many young girls who develop eating disorders in trying to emulate these models and it would finally allow real women to assert their beauty.

Emma Watson : New Styleicon?

As you all may know Karl Lagerfeld declared Emma Watson to be his muse and made her the face of Chanel.

These days you can see her in the Burberry winter 09/10s campaign. I came across it in Vogue Deutsch September. I wanted to show you one campaign picture in particular, because her expression reminds me of the expressions she has in the movies and film posters, but I can't find it on the Internet. So I will take a picture of it and show it to you.

I don't know why Burberry picked her to be the new face of the campaign, I think she looks too young, too self conscious and doesn't go with the male models.

But maybe it feels wrong because she is famous. I don't like it, when celebrities work as a model, because you just look at the person and not the clothes anymore. Models should give clothes the space to develop their beauty or uniqueness not the other way round.

 

Nevertheless here are some of the pictures