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Shock poster to stop girls dieting to death
Nick Pisa, Evening Standard25.09.07
This is the latest shock image to jolt the fashion industry into action over the problem of anorexia.
The picture of emaciated Isabelle Caro, 27, an anorexic who weighs just 31 kilos (4 stone, 12lb), has been displayed on Milan billboards as the city celebrates its fashion week.
Caro, who is French and has her own blog site, said that she had suffered from anorexia since she was 13 as the result of a "difficult childhood".
She added: "I've hidden myself and covered myself for too long. Now I want to show myself fearlessly, even though I know my body arouses repugnance.
"I want to recover because I love life and the riches of the universe. I want to show young people how dangerous this illness is."
The campaign was paid for by Italian clothing company Flash & Partners to publicise a fashion brand for young women called Nolita and the photograph was taken by Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani.
Flash & Partners said in a statement that Toscani's aim was "to use the naked body to show everyone the reality of this illness, caused in most cases by the stereotypes imposed by the world of fashion".
Many people blame the fashion industry and the obsession with stick-thin size zero models for the rise in cases of anorexia.
Calls for action within the British fashion industry led to a full-scale investigation into the problems by a panel of experts this year.
The report by the Model Health Inquiry, which was published last week on the eve of London Fashion Week, made 14 recommendations including requiring models to pass medical checks before being allowed on the catwalk and barring appearances from those under 16.
Unveiling the report, chairman of the inquiry, Baroness Kingsmill, slammed the fashion world for allowing young girls to be exploited.
"Just because modelling is seen as glamorous, [the industry] seems to think it is outside normal health and safety issues," she said.
"It is time it started taking care of its workers."
But London has failed to go as far as Madrid and Milan, where the authorities have banned the appearance of ultra-skinny models on catwalks by forcing models to carry certificates proving they are healthy.
The move, which dominated Milan Fashion Week last year, followed the death of 22-year-old model Luisel Ramos, who collapsed at a show in Uruguay. It was claimed she had gone days without eating properly.
Speaking at the time, Tiziana Maiolo, Milan's city council official in charge of promoting fashion, said: "We will work together with modelling agencies, with the chamber of commerce for fashion and with doctors to ensure that the agencies and stylists do not favour this phenomenon of anorexia.
"I don't think men want to see skeletal women and I want to say to women who are fuller-figured there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. They are undoubtedly the prettiest women about and the most intelligent."
Despite this, fashion designers in Milan dismissed fashion as having anything to do with the illness.
Commenting on the poster Giorgio Armani said he thought such a shocking image was "opportune" as a way of making people face up to the dangers of anorexia, which he said had little to do with models on catwalks.
He added: "Anorexia has reasons which are not linked to fashion. Even people who take no notice of fashion get anorexic."
Designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana said: "Finally someone is saying the truth about anorexia - that it has nothing to do with fashion but is a psychiatric problem.
"We have always maintained this despite all the political campaigns on the argument."
However, Italy's health minister Livia Turco backed the campaign and said: "The disturbing image of Isabelle Caro could open an original channel for communication and encourage people to shoulder their responsibilities in the area of anorexia."
Reader views (13)
I think that people need to aspire to be the healthy "middle" of these two extremes, there's terrific problems with eating disorders, so people who are too skinny, and obesity where people are going completely in the other direction! It's crazy!
- Esther, Inverness, Scotland
The fashion industry set the trends that only go up to size 4 or so. They publish their models in the magazines that young girls buy who want to be pretty...but find that their pubescent bodies are considered fat. Models are supposed to be the epitome of beauty in a young man's eyes, and they reject the girls who are not rail thin like these women. Not to mention the huge attack on anyone with a normal, fleshy body type (now considered 'fat). And also not to mention the fashion they make gets sold to actresses who strive to fit into the clothing young models wear and then it gets paraded all over the television and billboards in a billion different ways that haunt a woman every time she leaves her house. Fashion tells us all that having a body like a woman is just about the most disgusting thing on the planet. Those of you who don't see it are seriously ignorant and blind to the facts.
- Causticstorm, Louisville, USA
I am so bored of everyone blaming the fashion industry for eating disorders. It's not them at all.
Okay, so skinny models don't help things, but they are not the cause and this is certainly not the cure. As an eating disorder sufferer, I found this image very triggering.
I hate that fact that everyone seems to say 'okay! you have an eating disorder, it must be because you like fashion.' I find that very patronising indeed.
People need to shut up and get to the root cause. Magazines need to stop putting thin models on covers, with headlines like 'I almost died because I was 4 stone!' right next to 'How to fit into your bikini in 2 seconds!'
People are getting mixed messages and it's not fair. It makes me so angry.
- Lc, UK
I’m grateful to Isabelle Caro for her bold statement in the poster. I just sent this article link to my anorexic and bulimic 21-year old daughter. Oh how it grieves me to see these young women waste such talent and time on a lie! What voices, real or imagined, are speaking to these women telling them they are fat or that they must keep dieting? We must pray that this mental battle be won with the truth: that they are beautiful, capable women who are created to live in a healthy way.
- Pamela, Whidbey Island, WA, USA
I really admire her bravery in declaring her illness to help others. Obviously eating disorders are a psychiatric problem, but it should be just as obvious that endless images of scrawny models have an adverse effect on women's ideas of beauty.
- Laura Faye, Brandon, Florida
The real shock about this girl is ,compared to fashion magazines she almost appears "normal". She almost looks like a model. She needs make up and clothing and she could be a real model. Now isn't that scary?
I think I will feel so empty,I have come so attached to my boobs and my bit of flab and I have come to love every bit of me especially since I know I had a child with this fuller, healthier, touchable, voluptous, womanly body of mine.
- Sulette, South Africa
As an anorexic woman I am glad someone has finally taken notice to the toxic effects of the fashion industry on the psyche of both men and women alike. It is unfortunate it has taken deaths of models and the suffering of famous women to bring this epidemic to the forefront. There are many nameless faces that suffer and die in silence. Now it remains to be seen if action is taken so that not only the wealthy can get the help they so desperately need. Eating Disorders are illnesses not choices. There is still many changes that need to be made,research to be done and insurances companies that need to treat this as an illness just as they do obesity, drug addiction and mental illness.
- Maya Mitchel, Burlington, Vermont
Finally! Someone who's had the COURAGE to make people see the truth about this illness. As a former bulimic, I congratulate this man who sees right through the fashion influences, and the lack of concern from designers for these young walking time-bombs. My full respect to Isabelle Caro and I wish her full recovery with this terrible illness.
- Karin, Vienna, Austria
Well the fashion designers, including Armani are in denial and don't want to be held accountable for the damage that they have done. If the designers are not the problem, then they should start making clothes for the runway that are the size of a NORMAL AVERAGE woman...and that would be a 14....not a 0, 2 or 4. They have all sent the message that you must be that emaciated to be beautiful and fit into their clothes.
- Janie Lewis, New York, USA
Hopefully the fashion industry will sit up and take notice - although I doubt it. As long as stick thin models are seen as cool by teenage girls there will always be a problem with anorexia.
- Jerry, Wimbledon
Now I understand why the UK is so troubled by obesity. No sense of fashion.
- Nick, London
This really hammeres home how unhealthy being size zero really is. I feel better about my own cuddly figure now!
- Carol, Sidcup, Kent
So Giorgio Armani and Dolce & Gabbani dont seem to think that fashion has anything to do with anorexia? There are many causes to anorexia and no-one is saying that the fashion industry is 100% absolutely totally the cause - however it is undeniable that there are women out there starving themselves so that they can look like some of these size zero (and what next negative sizes? small, tiny, minute and foetus?) models who the fashion industry promotes as some kind of "ideal" to be aspired to. Denial is not a river in Africa - the fashion industry needs to wake up and accept its share of culpability.
- Michelle, London, UK
