Prete a Porter Fashion Shows Begin!

This week (Feb 25th) the Prete a Porter fashion shows begin. The usual crowd will be there, of course, but according to Le Monde newspaper, so will some health inspectors.

Sad to say, my chances of running the catwalk are doomed - the minimum weight is 56 kilos(at least that’s according to the health guidelines,and that’s for 175 meters height - how tall is that?). Finally,someone is showing some concern for those poor emaciated super models. Francois Chirot explains in her article who that after the great success of the superstars like Linda Evangelista in the eighties, some designers decided that they wanted viewers to focus on the CLOTHES, not the faces and they sought out more androgynous models.

So, uh, i.e. “the clothes make the woman.” Very uncool.
If you haven’t seen Altman’s film “Prete a Porter” now’s the time to uncork that one for fashion week.
A good read would be “The Fashion Conspiracy: A Remarkable Journey through the Empires of Fashion” by Nicholas Coleridge reprinted in 1989
And to that “The Devil Wears Prada” (the book is even better than the movie!) and you’ve got a pretty good idea of the ‘daffy side’ of the fashion industry.

I notice the Le Monde article did not mention a word about checking to see if models were using ‘controlled substances’. Pretty soon they’re going to be tested like athletes. Why not add to the insanity?

The bottom line is plenty of us put our bodies through every imaginable form of wear and tear to lose weight, win a race, get ‘out our out-of-body experiences,’ the only difference between fashion models and us is that their livelihood depends on staying thin - so they’re more or less forced to do whatever is necessary to hang on to these coveted jobs. BTW not just fashion models, don’t forget high school athletes - in particular wrestlers.

Very tough - don’t think I’d want to be in their shoes even if they’re Blahniks.