Maybe you should eat that cookie

Last week designer Bradley Bayou, formerly of Halston, held a panel to discuss growing trend of thinner than thin models walking the runways. Bayou has been close to the debate for personal reasons: his eldest daughter plunged into anorexia after not being able to fit into his sample sizes. She is now on the mend, but the ordeal changed how Bayou conducted business. He stopped using size-0 and size-2 models and encourages any too skinny model that comes to a casting to get help. Bayou claims that the CFDA is not doing enough to curb the problem. The CFDA, of course, feels otherwise and claims that the guidelines drawn up last year to help casting directors and agents identify models with eating disorders and to keep the models healthy and working (and well, alive) are working just fine.


A couple seasons ago Madrid’s Fashion Week made headlines when it banned models with a BMI (body mass index) of less than 18. Organizers in Milan followed suit with a minimum BMI of 18.5. This year Madrid banned 30% of models from walking after they were deemed to unhealthy. Neither Paris nor New York have any such guidelines. Considering the controversy stirred up by Ali Michael’s speedy return home to Texas for gaining a mere five pounds, maybe they should have them. Madrid’s regulations were enacted after not one, but two models died from being too thin within weeks of each other. Despite the uproar following the mandate back then, the models seemed more shockingly thin this year around. ELLE fashion editor Nina Garcia even felt compelled to put in her two cents, stating that even she thought the models were too thin and that the problem was only getting worse.


Unfortunately many of the designers do not seem to realize that will all of the focus on how thin the models are, people (editors, critics, and prospective customers included) are more likely to focus on the model wearing the garment, than the actual garment. It’s hard to be enthralled with a dress when the shoulder bones of the model wearing it are jutting out.

Ok, the model pictures were probably photoshopped, but here's some people we see/saw every day .

Calista Flockhart


Nicole Ritchie


Kiera Knightly


Mary Kate Olson


Amy Winehouse


Kate Bosworth