Last week, the editors of Vogue Magazine (all 19 editions) launched a Health Initiative ?to address issues such as booking models who are under the age of 16 or appear “unhealthy”. ?The wording is pretty vague and doesn’t contain any commitments that can be enforced, but in general it seems a very positive thing.?The fact that underage and extremely thin models are so common is clearly part of a much larger problem and it is nice to finally see it addressed. ? From a practical standpoint, how will they determine which of the extremely thin models are “healthy” and which ones have eating disorders? ?And if they do book girls who are not as thin, how will they dress them since the samples sizes for the clothes vary between a 0 and a 00? ?Regarding the age limit, models like Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Guinevere van Seenus, and so many more got their start when they were under 16 years old. ?At the moment, there are quite a few popular models working that are underage by the standards of the Vogue initiative. ?Will they no longer be booked?
If you are wondering why I chose this particular image for this post, its because Gracie is under 16. ?She’s lovely, fun, smart and definitely mature for her age but still, under 16. It’s rare for me to shoot a girl this age and I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable doing so for an editorial but in the context of the fashion world’s current discussion, it seemed appropriate for a beauty Polaroid. ?How do you feel about seeing such young girls presented as the beauty ideal? Will the fashion designers and other magazines follow the Vogue initiative? Will Vogue follow their own initiative?
* Note; ?Garance Dore recently did a very interesting post about food and weight as covered by Vogue in their May issue. ?Check out her post and the comments by her readers.
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