New York Fashion Week: Wasting Away

With the craziness of the new fashion season in full swing, we here at psfk are lucky enough to have fashion journalist Orli Sharaby braving the front lines of New York Fashion Week for us, sending both exclusive coverage from the shows, and unique backstage insights. Her first article is an interesting comment on the shocking way the CFDA have chosen to handle the recent skinny model issue…

In 2006, Nicole Ritchie’s sickly bathing suit photo, Kate Bosworth’s bobble-head, and two high-profile runway model deaths were finally enough to ignite a debate about anorexia in the American mass media. Even Matt Lauer and Larry King are taking up the body image issue with gusto, and while they are treating anorexia like it’s a new problem, at least they’re treating it.

Not so at New York Fashion Week, which kicked off this Friday. For the lay Fashion Week attendee, being surrounded by so many slinky celebrities and hanger-thin models is enough to make even the size 4’s among us feel like heifers. It’s only natural that the CFDA would give out not one, but two types of diet pills in their official gift bag. They’re only trying to help, right?

Somehow it seems they’re a little misguided. After the anorexia-related deaths of models Luisel Ramos and Ana Carolina Reston last year, Milan and Madrid put strict weight and BMI regulations on their models, addressing the anorexia problem head on. These regulations also served to make a statement about the fashion industry’s effect on women’s self esteem. The CFDA has unequivocally refused, opting instead for diet pills and a laughable set of “guidelines” that no one has any intention of following. And by the look of the models walking the runway this week, I wouldn’t be surprised to see even more anorexia-related deaths in 2007.

related fashion.psfk articles-
A Licence to Model
America’s Suggestions For Healthy Models