Skinny: Banned but Favored

“Armani weights in to row over thin models” titled an article - hopefully pun intended – featured on this morning’s Yahoo’s website.

Fashion designer Armani agreed that he had always used models "on the slender side", adding: "This was because the clothes I design and the sort of fabrics I use need to hang correctly on the body", the AFP story reads.

The row over banning the on-the-slender-side models from runways started when Madrid, whose regional government cosponsored the fashion show held there this month, excluded one third of the models who ran shows in 2005 from attending because they were deemed too thin.

Madrid took this action to avoid sending the wrong message to its teenage girls. The organizers said they wanted to "help ensure public opinion does not associate fashion, and fashion shows in particular, with an increase in anorexia, a disease which, along with bulimia, is considered ... as a mental and behavioral problem".

So just how thin is too thin?

In Madrid, a model’s body mass index (BMI) needed to be at least 18.
Measured with 5’9”, the required height for a fashion model, this means she needs to weight at least 122 pounds.

According to the measurements found on auditionagency.com, these 122 pounds are about the fashion business’s maximum. They call for models to be between 108 and 125 pounds.

Will banning skinny fashion models change women’s view on how desirable it is too be thin? Not according to a recent survey conducted by the UK University of Bath.

“This study shows us why using thin models is a successful strategy by advertising companies," said Professor Brett Martin, of the University of Bath’s Marketing Group in its School of Management.

The researchers interviewed 470 female undergraduates. Only 29 percent reacted favorably to models of a larger size while 67 per cent reacted favorably to print advertisements, in this case food products such as up-market salad combinations and gourmet hamburgers. featuring thinner female models.

Those who preferred thinner models tended to believe that weight can be controlled by dieting or exercise. They tended to think the thinner models were more “elegant”, “interesting”, “likeable” and “pleasant”.

Thinner women were more likely to believe weight could be controlled. They also were less likely to have friends who were larger women, and some of them believed that larger women were a little untrustworthy.

With thinner women obviously still being the role models, how far will Armani go to make sure that his clothes are hanging on the right kind of bodies?

His online Armani Exchange Fashion Clothing store delivers sizes PO to 14. This is up to plus six the average dress size (2-4) worn by the fashion models on the runways but it still leaves out half of the American women whose average size is 14.

http://http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060921/en_afp/afpentertainmentbritainitalyfashionarmani

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060908/lf_afp/afplifestylefashion_060908143012

http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/research/models200906.html

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bmicalc.htm

9/11: The Five Year Itch

While near the reflecting pools - in sight of the cameras - the widow of a 9/11 victim tearfully remembers her husband, wishing their grandchildren won't have to see a similar event, a less peaceful scene is formed at street level. Near the exit of the World Trade Center Path station, protesters wearing "investigate 9/11' t-shirts" and carrying "Ask questions, demand answers" banners clash with passers by.

"Some people are trying to provoke us", claims a young man standing near the pedestrian bridge overlooking the World Trade Center," that is why I chose to be at this quiet spot." The man, a heavily tattooed construction worker in his late twenties, claims to be a real conservative and doesn't take kindly to people who call him a liberal.

"For years I believed the story about the hijackers" he says, gazing at the steady stream of mourners in the pit, "but then I started to wonder who really benefited from all this." Only yesterday, at an event near Union Square, did he get his own investigate-9/11-t-shirt.

A forty something man wearing a blue cap with 'NAVY" printed on it, walks towards him and thanks him for doing what he is doing. "The fear is gone," he adds, "It's the government who should be fearful now."

Back at the World Trade Center PATH station, near where the newly hung pictures depict what happened here five years go, a fresh group of bystanders is loudly arguing with the learn-the- truth-about-9/11 protesters. This time their pamphlets have gotten company: a few Bush sympathizers, holding signs with "9-11 is the result of the Clinton administration" and "Support the war and our troops", have joined the crowd.




A few feet from the tumult, a young man sitting on the floor is playing his drums. Right next to him, Buddhist monks sit silently behind a piece sign. One of the 9/11 investigation t-shirt bearers has joined them. Across from them, two man are holding a gigantic board with on one side Ghandi's picture and on the other side the text "9/11/2006: 100 years of peace movement." In a corner, a Japanese man invites people to write a message on a large white cloth, laying on the ground.


Further down, near Cortland street, a lone flute player is crouched on the floor against the steel fens, a few bundles of roses adorning his head. Across, a chauffeur shows of his high wheeled patriot colored truck.

"You should all do like this man," yells a young woman in beige combat trousers while pointing at a slender built young man holding up a small sign saying "Forget about politics, remember the heroes."