Ghost of a flea

Ghost - Isn't it a ban on a body-mass index of less than 18? I don't know exactly what that computes to visually. (Depending on the thickness of the skin, can I lay pennies on the spinal discs of a BMI-17?) I agree with the spirit of your post (in terms of nagging busy-bodies), but I enjoy healthy midwestern girls with a bit of meat-on-the-bones and if this decree flowed from the Spanish fashion industry itself, I think I might give them a tip of the hat. BTW, the chicks in picture above are definitely skinny, but I don't find them repulsively so - in fact, they are cute (in that annoying pouty kind of way), but they rather obviously need a few porter/stouts under the belt.

I quite agree it would be excellent to see a wider range of body-types on the catwalk and that this would probably be a good thing for the industry both as a promotional vehicle and given the range of body-types of the general buying public. That said, if we are talking haute couture here the customer base is only about ten-thousand world-wide. Unless the aim is for Madrid to compete with Düsseldorf...

Something too that is often missed in scandalized disccusion of models and body-types is that the aim is to show off the clothes rather than the woman wearing them. Tall and skinny makes for the best clothes rack if not for a Venus-in-human-form of the Marilyn Monroe type. This is a paradoxical or at the least problematical aim because the end product is meant to be worn by women, (rather than for the clothes to wear the woman. Quite the opposite of life on the runway.

Ham-handed, silly and probably counterproductive, interfering gov't effort, to be sure. But I can't tell you how many times I've seen models with the hollow eyes and protruding bones of concentraction camp victims. It's not natural.

I remember Kate Moss (confirmed cokehead) being interviewed years ago backstage before a show. She was upset that people were blaming her for anorexia issues amongst young women. She claimed her body was natural for her, so, what's the big deal?

She's right, partly, of course (assuming her body IS natural). It isn't her fault at all. What's of issue is that Calvin Klein and others chose her and others like her to model their clothes. If one assumes advertising has any impact at all on young people, then the designers choosing the models are the driving problem, not the models themselves.

"If one assumes advertising has any impact at all on young people, then the designers choosing the models are the driving problem, not the models themselves."

The same logic drives critics of smoking in films and television, depictions of drinking, sexuality, "reckless" driving, etc. and so forth. My reluctance to start down this road is not knowing where it ends. If these models, the designers, the conglomerates for whom many of them work, the fashion magazines, cosmetics firms, ad agencies, etc. and so forth have the power to dictate taste then it says very little for personal autonomy or indeed personal responsibility.

Frankfurt School "cultural Marxism" tends to side against "agency" leaving us subject to the whims of an ideological superstructure at odds with our freedom. Yet somehow the intellectuals can always see through the ruse and offer to do the dictating in our best interest.

I believe this is a very old dispute best summarized by Plato's suggestion that Guardians might best educate those of us worth educating and do away with such corrupting influences as the theatre. Aristotle's rebuttle regarding "catharsis" has always struck me as the more convincing.