New York Fashion Week

image: New York Times

February 1 launched New York's Fashion Week. It's considered a huge event for American designers to showcase their newest collection. Within the last year in a half, however, it's the super thin models that have been given the spotlight than the actual clothes. With the death of four models during that time, the modeling industry was forced to make some changes. Madrid was the first to actually ban too thin models. Milan followed suit with a manifesto, however, London and New York did not. They each decided to come up with something different, asking designers not to use too thin models, have healthy food backstage, provide for workshops educating models on eating disorders, and requiring models be at least 16 to walk the runway. There may have been a few other guidelines, but I don't remember off the top of my head. They essentially said that the modeling industry was self-regulating and bans were unenforceable. You can take a look at the rundown of the model industry changes here.

Last year's NY Fashion Week, several articles claimed "super skinny" was out and that only healthy models were walking the catwalk. Hmmm. So is that trend still true this year? I'm not so sure taking a look at the photos. Now I have not looked through all of them as there was quite a few. None quite jump off the page at me, but still, I think thin is still in for the most part. If you take a look at the New York Times Style section and the Nymag fashion section, you can make your own judgment.