Last week saw the end of February, which means so long to nipple-chafing weather, disgusting v day and – best of all – fashion season. The aesthetic-obsessed industry – which profits from penniless Bangladeshi children threading together their feminist logo t-shirts for a bag of rice – will lay dormant until September. It will be a welcome break from the image libraries of emaciated women draped in over-sized shearling – a look I like to call ‘imminent heart attack chic’. Otherwise ‘woke’ fashion influencers, bloggers and fashion editors applaud the ‘art’ of their favourite designer, blissfully ignorant that their beloved mastermind may be contributing to the infertility of their fellow sisters.
I wasn’t always this unforgiving of fashion. In fact, there was a time when I saw myself as a valued member of the fashion pack and relished the ill-fitting jumper/culottes uniform. I remember my first fashion show in intricate detail. I barged my way to the second row, inches from Olivia Palermo, where I watched the parade of eerie, bony bodies saunter down a makeshift corridor of an east London warehouse. I was high off the glamour, making as many thoughtful faces as I thought necessary to fit in with the crowd. But I didn’t think the sharp collarbones and spindly legs in front of me were normal. In fact, I was horrified. ‘It’s so bad those girls are so obviously unwell – how can this be okay?!’ I remember ranting to my boyfriend that evening over sourdough pizza. Little did I know that less than a month later I’d be half way to looking just as sick and vowed never to touch pizza with a bargepole.
My point is not that exposure to this world gave me an eating disorder. Eating disorders, by definition, are multi-factorial and driven by an overwhelming desire for control or sense of identity. Yet, at the age of 22 – and desperately seeking both of the above – fashion offered a seemingly stylish solution. The maddening aspects of the industry were still glaringly obvious, but when such a world becomes your normal, you’ll do everything you can to fit in. Well, at least I did. In short, being part of a tribe seemed far more of a priority than the preservation of my mental and physical health. Not that I was even aware of any potential risks; colleagues, industry leaders, precious ‘contacts’ and even my friggin’ boss barely ate, resulting in model-esq physiques that seemed to keep them ticking over relatively well. If my kick-ass, wonder woman of a boss (who I girl crushed on for months on end) could get away with eating half a sandwich every three days and not die, then I could too…
Then came the illness, my rapid weight loss and the predictable words of encouragement. ‘WHAT’S YOUR SECRET EVE?!’ Ironically, I’d berate my work pals for rationing themselves measly squares of dark chocolate, yet cry ‘I’m going out for a big dinner’ if ever I was offered any. So whilst my naïve fashion assistant friends were able to survive off carb free lunches and a couple of apples but still go home that evening and prepare themselves a quick bowl of pasta, I wasn’t so lucky. It only took a few months of following the guidance of Anna Wintour and Victoria Beckham (I’d read they lived off black coffees and a concoction of multivitamins) to send me plunging into the depths of anorexia. When I began treatment for my eating disorder, I quickly realised that working in an image-focused industry and ED recovery did not mesh well together. The more I picked apart my fanatical relationship with fashion, the more I realised it was a mask for the deep insecurities that lay at the heart of my eating disorder. Either I wanted real, long-lasting recovery, or I wanted to be ‘in fashion’. Both, according to my long-suffering therapist, was not an option.
Of course not everyone who is enticed by Stella McCartney’s cape dresses will get compulsively weird about food. And not every skinny fashion model will end up in hospital. Although, according to a wealth of reports, many of them do. Last year I interviewed former model Victoire Dauxerre who developed anorexia during her successful career walking for the likes of Dior and Chanel. She told me that it was not uncommon to see girls being silently carted off from the runway on hospital stretchers. Most of the models she knew suffered from eating disorders and many remained infertile some years later as a direct result. It’s not surprising given that obsessive thoughts about food and body weight are a known repercussion of starvation, and starvation is the only route to maintaining the model-chic body weight.
There’s been some improvements in recent years with many designers banning size zero models from their shows. In 2017, a French law was introduced to crack down on ultra thin models at French fashion shows. Models now need to provide a doctor’s certificate detailing their overall physical health, with special regard to their BMI. Sounds promising, but snippets of September 2018 Paris fashion week would suggest otherwise. I’d be surprised if any medical professional would decree some of those girls ‘healthy’.
So here’s my point: No, size zero models and the industry that celebrates them do not – in the absence of other factors – cause eating disorders. But this murky, $2.4 trillion business is far from blameless. The normalisation of sick women in aid of pushing an unobtainable aesthetic and, let’s be honest, making a tidy profit is unforgivable, if you ask me. Not least because there are millions of women (and men) all too willing to grasp onto any community that dazzles them enough so they forget who they really are. It offers a tribe, a justification, an identity. We are too aware of the unprecedented growth in mental health problems for us to turn a blind eye to the triggers that engulf our society. Fashion, I’m afraid, is one of them. And whilst I still fully enjoy blowing a month’s rent money on a designer bag that barely fits my iPhone, I will never watch a catwalk show ever again. It just isn’t worth it.
