Skeleton in the Closet

I wrote some time back about stick-thin models and the pressures upon them to conform to a morbidly unhealthy body ideal. But it is not only models and not only women who fall victim to the distorted thinking that leads to eating disorders and other forms of self-mutilation. Photographer Fritz Liedtke experienced it to a degree as a young man and has now mounted an exhibit, Skeleton in the Closet, dealing with the issue through photos and accompanying text.

From Jeffrey Overstreet's interview with Liedtke:

One of the surprising things about people struggling with eating disorders is that, often times, they believe so thoroughly in what they are telling themselves (that I’m fat, ugly, unworthy of love, need drugs to keep going), that nothing you can say will help them. They won’t hear you. I’ve sat face to face with these beautiful people who were headed for death, and could do little more than listen. Of course, my role as an artist and photojournalist was to listen and tell their story, not be their counselor. But the depth to which we are able, as humans, to deceive ourselves, is quite surprising sometimes.

Another thing I found interesting in the interview process was how much people would share with me. I would sit there and ask questions and listen, and people would start telling me things that they hadn’t told anyone else, not even their spouses. I felt like a priest in a confessional. Obviously, they wanted to get things off their chest (with some encouragement from me), and I was honored to be able to listen.

Even a small sampling of the pictures had me fighting tears. They are eloquent and disturbing.

You can find Jeffrey Overstreet's complete interview with Liedtke at The Eagle and Child.

Technorati tags: Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating disorders, Fritz Liedtke

Who is really responsible for stick thin models?

In today's Ottawa Citizen, journalist Shelley Page tells the story (subscription required) of the modelling career that put her through journalism school and ruined her eating habits for years. She was pressured to take her healthy, athletic frame and reduce it to a size 6. It wasn't easy. Now, 20 years later, size 0 is the norm, and some models have literally died trying to attain and maintain it. Shelley is not buying the fashion industry's excuses.

In the two decades since I modelled, the young women have been forced from the sought-after size 6 to achieve nothingness. The size 0 standard almost negates their very existence.

Who are these women-hating designers who create clothes that only look good on women who are half-dead? Who are the idiots who sit stupidly in the audience during Fashion Week and applaud the ridiculous fashions draped over these dead-eyed girls? And who are these young women who are turning into zeroes?

And who are the every-day women who are complicit?

Let's face it, the fashion industry would not survive for two weeks if women didn't support it. Not just the "high" society sitting in the front rows around the catwalks, but the thousands upon thousands of women who buy fashion magazines and the celebrity tabloids with their breathless descriptions of the gowns at the Oscars. It is women themselves who are financing some of the most malicious exploitation of women that occurs in the Western world.

So what are you going to do about it?

Update: I've blogged about a powerful photographic exhibit dealing with eating disorders here.

Technorati tags: Fashion models

The banning of super skinny models

Steve Janke, Angry in the Great White North has a great post up about the ban of super-thin models at a recent fashion show in Spain. Unfortunately, his site has faulty software for accepting comments and they often don't get through. I lost patience with trying, but I would still like to comment, so here is my response to Steve.

I would prefer the fashion industry to do its own policing, but seeing as it is one of the most corrupt, women-abusive industries around, I wouldn't hold my breath. Maybe you're right and governments should be stepping in. One of the legitimate functions of government after all is the protection of its citizens, both from external threats and internal abuse.

For all your lack of interest in the fashion world - which I share, woman or no - you've done a good job of hitting a few nails on the head. Yes, the designers do prefer women that look like teen-age boys, because that is what corresponds to their own preferences and because of the practical considerations you mentioned. They have, for the most part, never shown the slightest interest in designing for real women. Fashion design is about being an artist, with all its attendant baggage of ego and self-indulgence, not about meeting any reasonable needs.

Have you ever seen the reports about the fashion agencies assuring parents that their teen-age daughters would be properly chaperoned while working in Milan and other European centres, while those self-same chaperones were introducing the girls to drugs and literally pimping them out as high-price call girls? This has been the subject of more than one exposé, but seeing as I saw them on TV some time ago, I can't link to them here.

The industry stinks to high heaven.

I have seen the future...

...and it's riding low.

Because I am Canadian, and therefore polite by definition, I try not to laugh out loud at the sight of middle-aged men in mullets and clunky gold chains riding on their grizzled chest hair, old ladies in tight perms and cat-eye glasses (oh wait, those are cool again), 30-somethings in great big hair, 50-somethings in headbands around their straggling grey locks and a host of other people who just can't get over the worst fashions of their teens and twenties. It looked rather silly when they were young and everybody was doing it. Now that they are no longer young and most other people have moved on, they are walking caricatures.

But the future will be even worse.

In ten to twenty years, those middle aged guys will be deliberately hanging their pants low so we can admire the pattern on their boxers. Or worse yet, their briefs. And the ladies will be showing off their puffy and distended tattoos just below the lumbar region.

You may start screaming now, but it won't do any good.

Technorati tags: Mullets, Low riders