Who Makes the Catwalk Walk?

Madrid Fashion Week (September 18-22, 2006) has created a stir in the fashion world, which in turn is stirring things up in the general culture, at least a little. Using a body mass index (weight to heighth ratio), organizers banned nearly a third of previous catwalkers from strutting their stuff. This is suppossed to promote healthier body images for women (read: not anorexia).

In fashionable Milan, city officials have announced their own new code of conduct to be in place by February 2007; it, too, is supposedly aimed to protect both audiences and models. Meanwhile, in Swinging London, there is also responsive chatter, some of it more ambivalent.

So who makes the catwalk walk from now on? Who is too thin? Is Calvin Klein in trouble? No more Twiggy waifs, no more Edie Sedgwicks? Is there a reasonable line between Heidi Klum, Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, and Nicole Richie? Admittedly, Richie looks like she's about to expire, but the other three? I don't really have an opinion on this, but find the controversy interesting. Do organizers really care about women's body image, or is this a hypocritical exercise in public relations and spin control?

The appalled British reaction to Kate Moss's addictions, once they emerged into the public sphere, seem ludicrous. Isn't it widely known that many models use various drugs to keep their image and deal with the lifestyle, just like athletes use steroids to beef themselves up for sporting events? Was she supposed to be some kind of romantic hero?

(Left: Heidi Klum for Victoria's Secret).

I suppose Naomi Wolf put things in perspective as well as anyone: "If I could write The Beauty Myth again, I'd put the clear conclusion of the argument--that we need to embrace pleasure, choice in adornment, our own real beauty and sexuality, and call ourselves feminists--in the first paragraph." (Preface to the paperback edition of The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women, Anchor Books, 1992).

The catwalk is used to help sell clothes designs and mass-produced knockoffs. I do not believe it is primarily "used against women" so much as it is used in the service of selling goods and making money. Women are free to choose what they wear, constrained only by economics, aren't they? Is this any different from the way cars are sold and bought? Built-in obsolescence, hunger for new models, commodity fetishism in the service of the market?


In any case, the fashion shockwaves will arrive on this side of the Atlantic shortly.

Today's Rune: The Warrior.

Ciao!