Is Size Zero Really the Answer?

A week before the major event that is London Fashion Week, the documentary Girl Model by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin will be shown in cinemas around London. It follows a 13-year-old aspiring model from Siberia as she is sent to Tokyo by her agency and gives us  a disturbing insight into the world of modelling.

London is the first city in which a trades union, Equity, has agreed to protect models. Rachel Blais is involved with Girl Model and advocates models’ rights: ‘On a shoot or during a show, a model is constantly working. Equity has guidelines on pay, working hours, allowed breaks, payment transparency etcetera. Without normal office hours, it is good to know your rights. Especially for young models, male and female, who won’t have the confidence to set boundaries.’

The size zero and the age debate seem linked as Kim Choong-Wilkins and Pliny Champion, the team behind menswear brand Bodybound note: ‘Our ideal is a developed masculine frame and we find it hard to get those kinds of models. Society is obsessed with youth but 14-16 year olds do not generally have developed bodies. If you tackle the age limit, you will automatically affect the size of the models.’

Rachel had challenging experiences herself when she started modelling at 17. She would like the model age limit raised to 18; she was spotted at the age of 14 but finished high school first: ‘At 18 at least you are legally an adult and if you have finished high school, it is easier to move on after your modelling career.’

She urges models to sign up on the Equity website; the fee they pay gives them access to free legal advice, for example, and insurance on and off work: ‘Protect yourself and the money you work for. The more models sign up, the bigger our voice and the bigger difference we can make for ourselves.’

As for the fashion industry’s attitude to young models, the Bodybound team reckons it can never be tackled by the sum of its parts: ‘There has to be consensus if there is to be change and something more concrete than the lip service given to the ‘black’ issue for example. I think that our position should be made not from a designer’s perspective, but from a human one.’

Girl Model is showing at Hackney Picturehouse, Ritzy Picturehouse and Soho Curzon from February 10, 2012.

Bodybound’s collection will be showing as part of VFS’s Ones to Watch on February 22, 2012 at London Fashion Week.