Puttin' On The Ribs

THIS YEAR, FASHION WEEK RESEMBLED "FASHION WEAK" WITH ITS NOW-FAMILIAR TIDE OF CATWALK WAIFS.  A FEW THOUGHTS ON AN INDUSTRY TRAFFICKING IN DANGEROUS IDEALS.

The latest from Emporio Armani's spring/summer 2015 sports line, unveiled in Milan to murmurs of shock and concern.  In promoting its attendance of the show, The Sunday Times of London was cut down to size (so to speak) after it tweeted the above from the viewing gallery.

To those in northern territories, late-September heralds the transition to ominous autumn skies flanked by blazing, golden fields and forests of unpredictable ombre; it is in this time of change we enter the Libra period of the Zodiac belt.  For those unfamiliar with symbols of astrology, the configuration of stars that determine this sign are roughly comparable to the shape of an ancient scale or balance, such as the mechanisms used to measure Roman coins, or librae.  Thus, the motto assigned to children born within this zone:  "I weigh."

I find this eerily appropriate, given that heaviness --as in a woman's heft and proportion-- is not only a regretful fixation of my own, but also the many patrons of international Fashion Week.  Having now wrapped official shows in New York, Paris, and London, these semi-regular, slavishly engineered events involve the world's most exclusive clothing houses.  Respected participants promote hotly anticipated new looks, fitting all manner upon dewy-faced sylphs who stride and pose upon elevated stages, bearing on their taught, angular frames what presenters hope will become the soon-to-be-coveted trends --- whether in direct sales or as mirrored by others.  Celebrities and style forecasters will from there dictate what is ultimately popularized, cherry-picking various aspects of a designer's line and stylization for approval and endorsement.  Generally in this system, an ensemble gains initial prominence when worn by an individual of notoriety.  Fresh, "edgy" wearables take longer to become firmly embedded into the broader mainstream, and once they do so they are, ironically, no longer considered covetable, or at least not by the savviest couture snobs.  At this point, the elite distance themselves from such "tired" frocks, replacing them with the next reimaginings from Bryant Park or the Carrousel du Louvre.  This is why updated installments of designer lines arrive as quickly as themes can be reworked and produced --de novo or in recognizable incarnations-- as to be en vogue one must be, above all else, unpredictable.

Who --or what-- is for sale?  (Stella Tenant by the fabulous & fantastical Tim Walker, VOGUE Italia circa 2000)

Yet still, season after season, one rule is as rigid and unchanging as Anna Wintour's severe bob and unflappable reserve.  Be it hair and makeup, mood music, even the health/race/age/class of the models themselves, every aspect of a successful runway presentation is put in place to be disseminated and absorbed.  Those eager for and capable of sartorial reinvention will take-on the newly-minted traits and gimmicks, demonstrating in a mere arrangement of materials what it means to be of the moment.  Coco Chanel once observed that "being different" is the sign of an irreplaceable, extraordinary individual, yet the very industry in which she gained notoriety is founded on parrotry.  Fashion operates as a delicate juggling act, a difficult trick in which style-mongers and their ilk express themselves as one-of-a-kind but also summon recognizable, definable schools of dress.  This is where we return to the idea of balance.  How can we be unique, listening to our own instincts and inclinations, forging our own pathways, living in the margins --- yet also not "rocking the boat" with such vigor that we completely overturn it, drowning ourselves in the process?  How can we be both unconventional AND approvable, in-step yet also willing to challenge and tweak the accepted uniform?

Now behind us:  Christopher Kane's designs from Milan, March 2014 (Photo:  Christopher James, British Fashion Council).

In the publishing realm, a brand is called an "imprint," reflecting the original process of applying pressure to mark paper with a carefully arranged message.  I am surprised that this term is not more regularly associated with brands of clothing, given that in order to stay profitable, their ultimate purpose is to imprint upon the public what constitutes the fashion du jour, i.e. what we should consider --by their authority and verdict-- the most covetable modes of dress and physical condition.  It's about generating new sales by getting us to believe in the merchandise they choose to spin, subscribing to what's "in" and "out" as seen in a catwalk stage show.  And with fashion, everything is being merchandised --including the models.  The models are the face of the industry (and also its breasts, stomach, legs, arms, hips, hair, and thighs).  For this reason, how these women and men come across has substantial impact on the public, for they serve as our standard bearers, our beacons in the fog of overwhelming opinion.

An additional view of the Armani presentation (Photo:  Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

Much comment has been made in the last twenty-odd years in regards to the ever-shrinking BMIs of those selected to represent the Big League labels, particularly their most prominent covergirls.  (I will speak more on this in my follow-up entry, an essay pertaining to curvaceousness in popular music --think: "Bootylicious"-- as paired with the phenomenon of "skinny-shaming," itself a reaction against all-too-often-caustic "thinspiration.")  The much-publicized heart failure and subsequent death of Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos in 2006 has aroused efforts to regulate the health of those hired to stride upon the slick elevated platforms.  I'll resign myself for now to end with excerpts from British newspaper The Independent, which wrote with unmistakable frustration on the prevalence of noticeably wan representatives in the latest round of designer presentations to be unfurled upon its home turf.  As an individual with a state of health comparable to or even beneath Ramos', I at times hesitate to sponsor the repeated refrain of:  "these girls look awful; they should be removed from the public eye."  I personally subscribe to the notion of selective exposure -- that a very thin person has a responsibility to display less of an area --say, an especially corrugated ribcage or origami-sharp triangle of shoulder blade-- if said feature is demonstrative of a perilous standard.  It's simply a matter of decency.  The opinion in the UK write-up read to me as a tad condescending, coldly referring to the models as "emaciated creatures."  Such dismissive objectification is nothing new and certainly exists in many number of forms within a superficial field.  Even so, I believe it bears further dissemination and gladly volunteer space herein to the author's voice:

The photos from London Fashion Week all look the same.  Identikit parades of skeletal women prowl down the skinny catwalk in front of hundreds.  Collarbones jut fashionably from beneath the strips of cloth that barely cover their modesty, or their protruding ribs, and their strikingly beautiful but gaunt faces all say the same thing:  I'm hungry.

Despite the obvious malnutrition of most Fashion Week supermodels, however, the media continues to print the pictures, giving the industry's 'thinspiration' message airtime and making the press implicit in the projection of an impossible and unhealthy image of beauty.  [...]  It's a shame plus size fashion has gone largely unnoticed again at this year's London Fashion Weak, shunned in favour of models with sallow faces and sharp elbows that grace the covers of newspapers and glossy magazines, their poised but starved bodies inspiring thousands of easily influenced teenagers.

As the emaciated creatures process down the Fashion Week runway tonight to a barrage of flaying lights and fashion accolades, spare a thought for the 13-year-old girl who will skip breakfast when she sees the photos in the paper tomorrow morning.  The fashion industry has the power to cause serious damage, and the responsibility to ensure it doesn't.  - Chloe Hamilton, September 17, 2014 (The Independent, no. 1,189, London, UK)

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"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes." - Henry David Thoreau, WALDEN (1854)