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Daily Press Editorial

You can never be too rich or too thin.

Hold that thought. It appears you can, if you make a living prancing down the catwalk.

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Last year two models died, apparently from complications brought on by anorexia. Madrid, Spain banned models deemed "too thin" from its runways, while London also considered a ban. Most recently, New York is feeling the pressure, its Fashion Week having renewed concerns over whether models are too thin.

"You can't blame the industry for eating disorders, but by being aware and sensitive to it we can change a lot of things," Diane von Furstenberg, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, said last week. New York Fashion Week was to include a panel of health, nutrition and exercise experts. The CFDA did not, however, institute a requirement that models have a body mass index (BMI) of at least 18, as Spain had done.

Some designers are furious at what they see as artistic interference. Critics do have a point: The BMI is a virtually useless predictor of actual health. Weight hysteria is weight hysteria. In most cases, you cannot tell a woman's health simply by what she weighs.

Still, while clothing design is an art, models are not passive canvasses and the attitudes of some designers concerning body size are ridiculous.

One news agency spoke to a designer who refuses to use models above a size 4. When asked what was wrong with a size 6 or even — gasp! — an 8, the woman shrugged and said her clothing just didn't look as good on the larger women. She seemed oblivious to the possibility that the flaw was in the design.

Besides, when you can count a model's ribs, it's safe to say there's a problem, if not with the model's well being, then with the people who continue to believe a woman's primary duty is to take up as little space as possible.

The fashion industry is using women's bodies to convey that message, which some designers defend as "artistic freedom" or dismiss as "market demand."

Both arguments ring hollow.

Designers may well prefer how their togs look on walking clothes hangers, but most women are not built like Kate Moss.

For whom, then, is the clothing being designed and to whom do these elitist designers intend to sell their wearables? As any woman who's ever embarked on a quest for a pair of properly fitted jeans knows too well, fashion designers for the most part are not responding to what women really want.

They're creating what they want to see. They're trying to tell women what to be. Perhaps a little interference with their "art" is overdue.

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