Fashion Week models' ages, health scrutinized

Bigwigs in the fashion industry - Vogue editor Anna Wintour, designers Diane von Furstenberg and Zac Posen, and supermodel Doutzen Kroes - gathered on the eve of New York's Fashion Week to talk about an ongoing concern: models forced to be unhealthily skinny.

The talk soon turned to one of the major causes: the demand for models who are 16 years old, 15 years old, even younger. Because their bodies haven't morphed from child to woman, they can fit into the size zero prototypes designers create, referred to in the fashion industry as the "sample size." They resort to dangerous measures to remain thin, such as taking Adderall or Vicodin, or throwing up, said casting agent James Scully.

In the past week, Scully said he interviewed 172 girls for modeling slots, and 75 percent of them were younger than 16, with an average weight of 110 pounds. They're told their hips have to be 33 inches or less - the message being "no matter how beautiful I am, I'm not skinny enough," Scully said. "I would love to see a minimum age of 18."

The meeting was organized by the Council of Fashion Designers of America's Health Initiative, and was called "The Beauty of Health: Resizing the Sample Size." The Tuesday session was devoted to protecting the health of models; a second meeting yesterday, sponsored by the Girl Scouts of America, had been scheduled to discuss the role fashion plays in the average girl's body image. It was rescheduled for next month due to the snowstorm.

There was some hot potato-ing at the Tuesday session, with editors and designers saying they are victims of the accepted industry norm. David Bonnouvrier, who runs the DNA Modeling Management Co., also noted the trend of finding young girls in Eastern European countries, which don't have child labor laws.

Wintour said she asked a fashion industry insider if he thought the Health Initiative was helping. "I'm very sad to report that this gentleman said, 'No it is not.' " She challenged the group for more suggestions on what to do.

Those included instituting restrictions on ages of models, waist sizes and working hours. But because the initiative, formed in 2007, is about awareness and not policing, any guidelines are voluntary.