THE DAILY BLADE: The Other Shoes Drop
It’s been a rough week for The Stiletto – a dinner date, two after-work parties – so she’s kinda tired, and will take the path of least resistance by offering a roundup of updates to stories covered in previous editions.
Skinny Is Out, Curvy Is In
The Stiletto never thought she’d live to see the day when underweight models, who need duct tape to push their grape-sized titties together to create the illusion of cantaloupe-sized cleavage, would be considered undesirable for the catwalk. But it’s true!
First, Madrid made good on its threat to ban models deemed too thin, according to The Associated Press:
Doctors Susana Monereo of Spain's National Endocrinology Society and Basilio Moreno, an obesity consultant at Gregorio Maranon Hospital, were among the specialists called on to medically assess the models.
Five of the 68 models who showed up for appraisal failed the test, the doctors said. The models were over 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed less than 121.25 pounds, Monereo said.
"They had a body mass index below, well below, that which is considered normal not just by the Spanish endocrinology society, whom we represent, but also by the limits set by the World Health Organization," Monereo said.
India’s minister of health, Anbumani Ramadoss, is also denouncing overly thin models because of concerns that young girls wanting to emulate them are dieting so stringently they are developing osteoporosis. Reuters notes that, "India plays host to several major fashion shows, and television channels regularly air footage of skinny, scantily clad models."
And British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell. called for London Fashion Week organizers to follow Madrid’s lead. "Young girls aspire to look like the catwalk models - when those models are unhealthily underweight it pressurizes girls to starve themselves to look the same," Jowell said. The show went on.
For his part, at the after party of his London show, legendary designer Giorgio Armani said he prefers "healthy girls," and told the Irish Examiner that, the blame for too-thin models should fall on the press and stylists for the industry's obsession with weight:
"I have never wanted to use girls that are too skinny," he said. "I prefer girls that show off my clothes in the best way. Unfortunately though, the stylists and also the media have interfered and they now want models that are incredibly thin."
"No one thinks that for a girl to be fashionable she needs to be anorexic, that she must not eat. I will only take on healthy girls."
And, finally, The New York Times weighs in with a surprisingly snarky (for them) editorial:
If fashion models were purebred dogs instead of underfed women, there would be an outcry over the abusive standards for appearing in shows and photo shoots. The prize for women who aspire to the catwalk is a ridiculous size 0, though overachieving undereaters seem to be reaching for size 00, which invites further starvation, serious illness and worse.
If the industry needed a wake-up call, it got one last month, when Luisel Ramos, an Uruguayan model who had been advised to lose weight, died of heart failure after taking her turn on the catwalk. She reportedly had gone days without eating, and for months consumed only lettuce and diet soda. …
It’s doubtful that models will be in dressing rooms bulking up with cheeseburgers or anything more caloric than watercress to "make weight," like prizefighters and amateur wrestlers. But ending the parade of the starved and sickly seems like a fashion trend worth following.
Lactivists March On Toys "R" Us
The New York Post reports that some 40 breast-feeders protested outside Toys "R" Us in Times Square over allegations that staffers tried to stop a mother from nursing her infant in the middle of the sales floor. Chelsi Meyerson, 29, claims that on Sept. 11, she was nursing her 7-month- old son, Mason, in Toys "R" Us when staffers told her it was "inappropriate" to breast-feed in the store. She said they told her to go to the basement. The toy store contradicts her version of events, stating that a store employee approached Meyerson once to ask whether she would be more comfortable in the store's private nursing room.
Town In Long Island Tackles Illegal Immigration With Hazelton-Style Law
The Suffolk County Legislature voted 15-3 to pass a bill to fine – and even jail - business owners with county contracts who hire illegal immigrants. The bill, expected to be signed into law by the county executive, applies to 6,000 companies and agencies. Suffolk County, on the eastern half of Long Island, has joined the growing number of small towns across the U.S. that are following the lead of Hazelton, PA, to stem the tsunami of illegal aliens who are changing the culture and character of towns overnight, and overwhelming the ability of these communities to provide basic municipal, health and safety services to residents.
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