Store mannequins, like people, come in all sizes. Why do the impossibly skinny ones seem to have the floor this Christmas?
A walk around downtown San Francisco feels like stepping back into the mess that Ralph Lauren made this fall with an absurdly altered photograph. In this ad, supermodel Filippa Hamilton's jeans fit like a cartoon. (Oversize head, tiny body.) "Dude, her head's bigger than her pelvis" was the cogent comment on the popular website Boing Boing. Around the same time, oddly, Hamilton was fired.
Hamilton then went on the Today Show to report that she was fired because she had become too fat for the clothes. At 5-foot-ten, the supermodel weighs 120 pounds and wears a size 4. She started working for Lauren at age 15.
Polo Ralph Lauren did apologize about the ad:
"For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity. After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman's body.
"We have addressed the problem and going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the caliber of our artwork represents our brand appropriately."
Meanwhile, Karl Lagerfeld (Fendi, Chanel, Lagerfeld) chimed in. In an interview by the German magazine Focus, Lagerfeld ripped the plan by Germany's most popular magazine, Brigitte's, to use "ordinary, realistic" women instead of professional models in future fashion spreads. Absurd, said the designer. Women who complain about skinny models must be jealous.
"These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly," Lagerfeld told Focus.
So, fellow fat mummies, we can laugh at Lauren and Lagerfeld, but the Christmas season may prove the Chanel designer had it right when he that the fashion industry supports "dreams and illusions, and no one wants to see round women."
Back on the streets of San Francisco, the big stores' festive holiday displays stir up worry on several fronts. Uh-oh, not a lot of shopping bags attached to the families and friends shuffling from window to window. Also befitting the economy, there's a lot of black in those windows.
And, could designers also be saving money on material? They don't need much to cover these stick-figure mannequins.
After the deaths of three anorexic models, the Madrid fashion show decreed a ban on models whose body mass index fell below what the Whole Health Organization considers healthy. That was three years ago. It hasn't had a ripple effect.
It doesn't have to be this way.
As featured on oprah.com, one of tomorrow's leaders is Judi Townsend of
Oakland, California. Her company project, Mannequin Madness, rents and sells recycled realistic mannequins, sparing the landfill along the way. Townsend says,
"Artists buy our parts to make projects, and lawyers buy them in order to demonstrate in court where someone was shot. Our business inspires people to use their creativity and imagination and demonstrates that there are all kinds of ways we can be environmentally conscious."
See, ladies, we can have it all: Be beautiful, environmental and stimulate the economy.
