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Grace Coddington is the creative director at American Vogue.  I was so happy to see someone with such an influential position in the fashion world, speak up in regard to the Ralph Lauren overly photo shopped image and the overly thin models coming down the runway.  She has has personal experience and can easily empathize with the models who constantly have their image watched.

“It is a big problem,” Coddington admitted. “I remember when I was young, they told me that if I didn’t lose weight I’d be out of the show, so I spent a week living off of coffee. But I’m a very levelheaded person. These problems nowadays are with kids much, much younger than that, and that’s most of the problem — when they’re very young and vulnerable.”

Grace highlights the main issue in the quote below, its good to hear that she realizes it is a big problem in the fashion industry.  That admission does not happen much from someone in her position.

“Most of his models are not super-skinny, so this is sort of an isolated situation, and I think it’s unfair if he gets a lot of bad publicity because of it. But it is a big problem in the fashion industry. And you go to meetings to discuss it, and you think it’s kind of futile, because it’s such a big thing, and in the end, people are always asking for more and they’re always asking for thinner.”
 

“They have to be a little thinner than you and I because you always photograph a little fatter,” Coddington replied, “but you don’t have to go to the extremes they go to. And because they’re kids, they take it too far, and they can’t regulate their lives, and next thing you know they’re anorexic, and it is tragic. And I don’t know what the answer is, except to keep on it, which we’re all trying to do. Anna’s trying to do it. Personally we’re not allowed, at Vogue, to work with girls who are very thin, but you never know, because you could book them and think they’re a certain size, and they turn up on the shoot and suddenly they’ve spun into this anorexic situation. And you’re on the spot and you have to get the job done and you have one day to do it, and what do you do? But you try to be responsible, as Anna is.”

See the whole article at nymag.com
 

What do you think?