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Vogue editor hits out over size-zero models

By Lucy Halfhead on Monday 15 June 2009

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The editor of Vogue magazine has accused some of the world’s leading catwalk designers of pushing ever thinner models into fashion magazines despite widespread public concern over ‘size-zero’ models and rising teenage anorexia.

Alexandra Shulman, one of the most important figures in the multi-billion-pound fashion industry, has taken on all the largest fashion houses in a strongly worded letter sent to scores of designers in Europe and America.

In a letter not intended for publication but seen by The Times, Shulman accuses designers of making magazines hire models with ‘jutting bones and no breasts or hips’ by supplying them with ‘minuscule’ garments for their photoshoots. Vogue is now frequently retouching photographs to make models look larger, she added.

Her intervention was hailed last night as a turning point in the debate over model size that has raged after the deaths of three models from complications relating to malnutrition, and the decision of leading fashion shows to ban size-zero models.

Baroness Kingsmill, who headed the 2007 Model Health Inquiry on behalf of the British Fashion Council, said the stand taken by Shulman was ‘an encouraging sign’ from one of the industry’s ‘leading lights’.

‘We have now reached the point where many of the sample sizes don’t comfortably fit even the established star models,’ Shulman writes, in a letter sent to Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano and fellow designers at Prada, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and other top fashion-houses.

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