ISSUES
: Body Confidence
Chapter 1: Body Image
16
France divides the fashion world by
banning skinny models
French MPs pass a law making it illegal to employ unhealthily thin women or photoshop
images without stating it clearly.
By Henry Samuel
F
rance has sent shock waves
through the global fashion
industry by passing a surprise
law making it a criminal offence to
employ dangerously skinny women
on the catwalk.
Under the new law, anyone running
an
agency
found
employing
undernourished models below an
as-yet undefined Body Mass Index,
or BMI, risks a maximum six-month
prison term and a
€
75,000 (£55,000)
fine.
Magazines will also have to
systematically indicate when a
photograph of a model has been
digitally ‘touched up’ to make her look
skinnier or bulkier on pain of a
€
37,500
fine or up to 30 per cent of the sums
spent on advertising.
The French fashion world reacted with
anger, however, and described the
measure as “a dangerous confusion
between anorexia and the slimness of
models” that will disadvantage Gallic
agencies in what is a global industry.
French ‘fashionistas’ were already up
in arms against another amendment
passed on Thursday night that will
make glorifying anorexia on the
Internet a criminal offence. People
who run so-called “pro-ana” or
“thinspirational” websites risk a
maximum year’s imprisonment and a
fine of
€
10,000 for “provoking people
to excessive thinness by encouraging
prolonged dietary restrictions that
could expose them to a danger of
death or directly impair their health”.
A host of websites or blogs claim to
offer beauty tips to girls as young as
12, including starving themselves to
create stick legs and a yawning “thigh
gap”.
Until Friday morning, it was assumed
the second measure targeting
modelling agencies would be
dropped, as many MPs had pointed
out that it would violate France’s strict
employment law on discrimination in
job recruitment.
However, the National Assembly
voted it through after health minister
Marisol Touraine said the use of
excessively thin models in fashion
was “worrying” and that she backed
the change.
Dr Olivier Véran, a Socialist MP
and neurologist who tabled the
amendment, said it was crucial to
change mentalities in the fashion
world about what is considered
acceptable in terms of skinniness.
“The prospect of punishment will
have a regulatory effect on the entire
sector,” he said, pointing out that
Spain, Italy and Israel had already
taken similar measures.
Spain bars models below a certain
body mass index from featuring in the
Madrid fashion shows; Italy insists on
health certificates for models and
Brazil is considering demands to ban
underage, underweight models from
its catwalks.
The World Health Organization
considers people with a BMI below
18.5 to be underweight and at risk of
being malnourished.
Arnaud Robinet with the opposition
centre-right UMP party said the
new law was “inapplicable and
discriminatory” and would put
the French fashion world at a
disadvantage.
“Agencies will employ foreign models
over French models,” he claimed.
France’s national model agency
union Synam said a purely French
approach would disadvantage the
country’s models.
“French model agencies are
constantly in competition with their
European counterparts. As a result,
a European approach is essential,” it
said.
It also said the law “confuses anorexia
with the slimness of models”.
“When you look at criteria for
anorexia, you can’t just take BMI
into consideration, but other criteria
too, psychological but also whether
models are losing hair or have teeth
problems (due to undernourishment).”
The new law will ban any model
whose BMI falls below a level fixed by
France’s Higher Health Authority.
But Isabelle Saint-Felix, secretary
general of the union, insisted that
some models, such as Ines de
la Fressange, often dubbed the
quintessential twiglike French model,
were skinny by nature.
“She says herself that its part of her
constitutional make-up, just like the
rest of her family.”
Dr Véran said a 2008 charter of
good practice signed by the fashion
industry had failed to change
mentalities. During the parliamentary
debate, he read out a letter from a
top model explaining how agencies
“congratulated girls who lose weight
and recommend taking laxatives”.
He citedonemodel whoweighed “less
than 45kg at 1.8m tall” whose friend
died of a heart attack after coming off
the catwalk due to “starvation”.
There are an estimated 40,000 people
in France suffering from anorexia,
around 90 per cent of whom are
adolescents.
3 April 2015
Ö
The above information is
reprinted with kind permission
from
The Telegraph
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