I got a bit curious about this whole thing so have been looking around online. First thing is that yup, there do seem to be quite a lot of gay blokes in the fashion industry. Doesn't really surprise me, and isn't a big deal in itself.
If you google up lists of "top 10 fashion designers" this
sort of thing is pretty typical. That list has 2 women, one straight man, and 7 gay or bi men. The lists vary, depending on the author's personal opinion about who is greatest, but generally it seems fair to say that there are proportionally more gay men in such lists than there are in the population at large.
However, the whole trend for skinny models was apparently started by
Elsa Schiaparelli, who of course wasn't a gay bloke.
While her innovations in fashion design were numerous, it was her creation of the runway show as we know it today that was most influential. Her modern idea of a fashion show included a runway with music and art, and the use of elongated, shapeless women as models.
She believed that this boyish figure would best display the clothing. Many people do not realize the true sum of her impact on fashion and the fashion industry.
So, you can't blame it all on gay blokes (which should not be an earth-shattering revelation).
OTOH, it seems fair to say that the gay blokes who are in the fashion industry are complicit in the push for anorexic models, along with everyone else. Quotes from industry insiders say
things like this:
'It's no good,' Sam was saying. 'There's absolutely no point in you doing London Fashion Week. You're gorgeous, you've got the 'wow' factor and photographers love you, but you've put on weight since the summer.
'It's quite natural - most 16 and 17-year-olds' weight fluctuates because of hormonal changes - but if you're an inch over size 8, you'll be torn to shreds. Those queeny designers and their scouts would make your life hell and it could destroy your confidence.'
Seeing my crest-fallen daughter, another model stepped in to try to comfort her. 'The fashion world is awful,' she said. 'They all demand size zero models - what they really want is surrogate boys. It's not just the camp male designers. Some of the women are just as hard.
'However young a girl is, they don't just say "Thanks but no thanks" if they don't want to use you. They're incredibly insulting and personal and can make even very promising models feel utterly worthless.'
Some models have fought back.
Coco Rocha, who is 1.78 metres tall and weighs only 48 kg:
In an open letter to the New York Times, Coco spoke out on her blog about the pressure the fashion industry puts on young models: "How can any person justify an aesthetic that reduces a woman or child to an emaciated skeleton? Is it art? Surely fashion?s aesthetic should enhance and beautify the human form, not destroy it."
In an email to the Associated Press, she gives an insight into the fashion world, saying: "I'll never forget the piece of advice I got from people in the industry when they saw my new body ... They said, 'You need to lose more weight. The look this year is anorexia. We don't want you to be anorexic but that's what we want you to look like.
The trend seems to have
gotten worse over the last couple of decades.
Curiously, the evidence of model shrinkage was there all along, easy to track. ?In 1986, the standard size was 4 to 6,? Ivan Bart, the creative director of IMG models and arguably the most powerful agent in the business, said on Sunday at the Diane Von Furstenberg show, referring to standard sample sizes. ?Then it was a solid 4. Then 2 to 4. Then zero.?
When Kate Moss first arrived on the scene she was considered to be tiny. These days they'd probably try to book her as a sumo wrestler.
We've now reached the point where it seems that
a model dies from anorexia roughly every year.
Ana Carolina Reston - 14 November 2006, fashion model (22)
Luisel Ramos - 2 August 2006, fashion model (22)
Eliana Ramos - 13 February 2007, fashion model (18)
Hila Elmalich - 14 November 2007, fashion model (33)
Isabelle Caro - 17 November 2010, fashion model, anorexia activist and actress (28)
Topic: Isabelle Caro, the face of anorexia, dies at 28