Mark Fast's fashion design modeled on normal sized women. sustainable-fashion.com
About a week ago, Canadian fashion designer Mark Fast supposedly set the fashion world all atwitter by using “plus size” models in his show of knitwear dresses. The clothing is lovely, weaves and provocative openings and fringes that gives a sinuous sway to the skirts.
But the fashion industry is awash with human sticks, and there is not much shape to a knit dress on a 0 size, anorexic model. Mark Fast chose to show that normal women with curves could wear his dresses and though he was very diplomatic and did not say he was against the human hangers that the fashion industry normally hangs its clothing on (for runways designs anyways…you’ll find normal sizes in a clothing catalogue). He just said he wanted to show that women with more curves could wear his outfits too.
Also known as heroin chic, the skinny models of these days look emaciated because they are. A short google search will show stories of women surviving on lettuce, removing walnuts from their salads as being too high-calorie, and stories of size 8 women not being accepted by agencies because they’re too fat. When I had my eating disorder and attended meetings, it was about 90% scrawny models and almost all of them had known of a model who died from starving themselves. That does not speak of a good precedent. Today, Marilyn Monroe would be considered a fatty.
It’s astounding too that the press reported on this extravagant disregard for the traditions of skeletal models by calling the other models “plus size.” Size 12 and 14 (and these models may not even be of that size) are not plus sizes. They are normal for women who are tall and if you look at the pictures of these models, they don’t look fat; they look fit. Plus size really begins past size 14 when a person is carry more than an average body weight according to health guides not the fashion industry’s idea of thin. These bigger than zero size models in Fast’s runway show have a curve to their calves, and sinuous lines that indicate they are healthy women. Not one of them is fat or overweight.
The ribcage-evident, knobby knee models who have to have breast implants because there isn’t
Still considered sexy by today's standards, Marilyn would have been a plus size. Photo: Claudio Andres
enough fat to support a breast anymore are the norm with the fashionista agencies telling them that they need to lose more weight if they’re a size 5 or 7. I am not blaming models but the industry itself and the media for perpetuating the image that a woman who is size 10 is fat. (We can throw the TV/movie industry into this mix of perpetuating anorexia as well.)
Supposedly attitudes in the fashion industry are changing and moving back to a more realistic norm, but if this is the case, then there wouldn’t be such titter about two models with meat on their bones. It’s a sad statement when we ostracize hungry people and say that Auschwitz health is the norm. So, good for Mark Fast using normal models alongside the twigs. May the industry be forever set on its rear end and realize that health should matter more than clothes and that not all of us fit one size.
As for the aspect of runway modelling and that it is in fact more an art style than functional clothing, I’d say people who slavishly stick to the medium of the anorexic model are not really being true artists and are limiting themselves to the accepted attitudes. That’s not what art is about. Art is about pushing the envelope, exploring the unknown and taking chances. Congratulations to Mark Fast for taking his medium farther.
Colleen Anderson 