Quote From: detta77 Dear Dr phil, and other faithful viewers, I have inside, behind the scenes info on the fashion Industry I am a Fashion Designer and have been to quite a few runway shows in San Francisco. Its repulsive what some of the models do to stay thin i have fitted and dresed many (some celebs). believe me its not just the models who are expected to look this way . I have been discriminated against when trying to get a job in the Fashion Industry because I dont look the part as some have said to me, I have even had a teacher at the Fashion College that i attended in S.F tell me that the Fashion Industry is about beautiful people and they only hire beautiful people. This crushed me, it is disgusting to know that i will be hired solely on my looks and not on my talents and skills as a designer. On top of that Designers are behind the scenes creating what these celebs wear so what does it matter what I look like. Some people need to wake up and stop incouraging this bad behavior. I see my nine year old daughter becoming a victim of the thin vs. fat isues in her elementry school. WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE!!!
Back in the late 70's/early 80's I was modeling, runway and specialty modeling. Back then 5'7" was the minimum height and size 6 was the normal size for the clothing. I was 5'7" and weighed in at around 110 (naturally thin, no diets or purging, etc). However, even at that time I saw models purging, using laxatives, etc. in order to stay thin enough to fit into the clothing. That was the criteria ... fitting into the clothing. Today is even worse! By today's standards I would have been close to being a plus-size model even at a size 6! And the attitudes have not changed either ... when I started I was told I was nothing more than a piece of meat to hang the clothes on ... so maybe there has been an improvement if models have moved to 'hangers' instead of 'meat'. I guess my point is, while things have changed, they have also stayed the same ... and in some ways has gotten worse. Models from Twiggy through Kate Moss have been the bane of every normal size female and will continue to be so until we, the women, STOP BUYING THE CLOTHING! It has been years since I have bought a designer label because of the meat market and the signal it sends to girls of all ages. Maybe if more people stop buying from the labels that consider a size 12 to be "plus size" and demand that clothing be realistic for real women we could bring about a change!
Forgive my rambling! I hope what I wrote makes sense.
