Over the summer, a wave of articles that celebrated the end of size zero and therefore the reintroduction of womanly curves appeared in about every British women’s magazine. But despite various attempts to put an end to glorifying the image of malnourished women, recent fashion week reports and magazines alike are still plastered with pictures of clearly underweight models.

In 2006, the furore of media and public controversy around size zero peaked when two (2!) South-American catwalk models died of the consequences of severe malnutrition. Earlier this year, the discussion around the lethal trend was once again fuelled when Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman fired off an angry letter at designers, asking them why they only supplied doll-like sizes for photo shoots, forcing the magazine to use increasingly skinnier models. She stated that some of the pictures needed retouching to fatten up the sickly thin women.

But was it all ‘talk no action’?

Being used to the ‘look of hollow’, I have almost become indifferent to the blunt expression on hungry faces. Only recently, and with the thought of having a little girl myself, I started questioning: Is this the image of women I want my daughter to look up to or identify with? And when is this ever going to change?

On the other side of extremes, Beth Ditto was celebrated as the new style icon. Apparently, people admire her for embracing her ‘curves’. But reportedly, she is not happy with her weight herself. To me this all smells of Anorexia complimenting her friend Obese into having another doughnut.

When Germany’s best selling women’s magazine Brigitte announced to stop working with professional models but feature only ‘normal’ sized women, Karl Lagerfeld replied: ‘These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly.’ Well, Karl, I am not. I am just saying that thin doesn’t equal beautiful. Have a look in the mirror to see for yourself.

I am so fed up with extremes being promoted by the fashion industry/the media/whoever. Cindy Crawford recently said she’d be too healthy looking for today’s catwalks. How sick is this?

One could get the feeling that incorporating healthy looking models is just another cruel publicity stunt. Take the Mark Fast show at the recent London Fashion Week, for example. He ‘bravely’ included three curvier models into his show. Result: three beautiful girls that looked like rolled pork roasts in dreadful thread numbers.

The poor girl looks completely hideous. Not because she is too big, au contraire. But because the item she is wearing has been designed for a teenage boy’s body. Or for a woman’s body that has been starved to look like one.

To be continued.

Photo credits: 1. & 2. Wikimedia Commons, 3. style.com