Designers prefer thin models to showcase their clothes, and thinness is associated with positive concepts such as success and exclusivity. This perception has led to unhealthy eating patterns and eating disorders among models. However, some agencies and countries have adopted policies to discourage hiring individuals who do not meet a minimum weight.
Models are thin largely due to how designers want their clothes to appear during the marketing process. They also appeal to a number of positive concepts that members of society uphold, with thinness acting as a means of feeling better or acquiring something desirable. The stress of meeting industry standards sometimes pushes models towards unhealthy eating patterns that also support thinness. While the perception is that most modern models are very thin, many are normal weight and are supported by minimum weight policies in some parts of the industry.
Designer and the drape effect
Typically, designers use tools such as busts and mannequins when designing their clothes. These devices provide a very simple structure upon which clothes can be draped and hung. When designers transfer their clothes to a person, they want their designs to maintain this natural effect. Fashion models essentially become living shelves for clothing. One criticism of this practice is that an extremely small percentage of women have the little structure necessary to get their clothes to hang the way they were designed.
Using thin people as a rack for the drapery effect is probably a conscious choice on the part of the designers. It is based on a personal belief that draping clothes over a thin frame is more beautiful, but this is simply a matter of individual preference. Members of the public have often criticized the industry for creating and perpetuating an unrealistic ideal, choosing a singular view of beauty over health.
Social meanings behind thinness
From a marketing point of view, those who present fashion models to the public sell much more than clothing and accessories. They also sell concepts like happiness, self-worth, or wealth. These concepts appeal to desires that audience members have, however unconscious those desires may be. The ideas that companies can use to attract consumers largely depend on the cultural mandates that have shaped belief systems.
In the United States, thinness is associated with several positive concepts, including health. Obesity is a growing problem, so some people support leaner models as a means of rejecting weight-related health and social concerns. They say don’t allow thinner workers to perpetuate the idea that being obese or overweight is acceptable.
Thinness also conveys the idea of success. Heavy or obese individuals may experience greater discrimination not only in personal relationships, but also in areas such as business. People who have top positions and wealth are often thinner, so thin fashion models can appeal to a desire to achieve and grow socioeconomically. This contrasts directly with earlier eras where access to funds meant the ability to indulge in more food and sturdier frames were desirable as a sign of class. This demonstrates that the definition of beauty in relation to thinness is not static, with the modern era defining beautiful as less heavy.
Some people also see waifish bodies as representing elite or exclusivity. Not many people can achieve or maintain extremely thin frames, so when a person is able to and looks like someone in a commercial, they can feel like they have an ability that others don’t have. Filmmakers and designers may recognize this and continue to book thinner people in an effort to appeal to the natural desire people have to be noticed and set apart from the crowd. The success of one of the skinniest fashion professionals of all time, Twiggy, may have been connected in large part to this desire, as her 91-pound (41.2 kg) frame was drastically and startlingly different from anything the public had ever seen. seen before.
The positives that skinny fashion professionals sell in magazines, commercials, and other media make it difficult to eradicate unhealthy weights in the industry, even when the people representing the designs are clearly unhealthy. One example is the 1990s trend of “heroin chic,” a phenomenon characterized by ultra-thin professionals like Kate Moss with angular bone structures, dark circles, and fair skin, giving the impression of being addicted to heroin. It arose because the stigma and cost of heroin had both fallen, with drug use having moved into the upper class and seemed more sophisticated. Prominent individuals such as Bill Clinton have condemned the trend of advocating drug abuse, but it has remained popular for years.
Psychological issues, psychological problems
Designers and the fashion industry as a whole put enormous pressure on models to maintain their physiques. Those who gain weight are sometimes not called back for additional work, depending on which agencies they partner with. A number of people in the industry therefore resort to skipping meals, overusing laxatives or vomiting when they eat to keep weight down and deal with stress. This has led to high cases of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Even when a model wants to stop disordered eating behavior, the underlying psychological elements of the condition make it difficult to resume normal eating habits.
Changing standards
The public perception is that practically all models are thin, but this is not true. In response to public criticism of unhealthy worker weights, some agencies and countries, such as Spain, have adopted policies that discourage the hiring of individuals who do not meet a minimum weight. Many people also work for plus-size designers and companies. While it hasn’t knocked very thin models out of work in many cases, it can help those who want to maintain a healthy weight.
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