Magazine Ads banned due to Model too Skinny!!

The pose was more than a little disconcerting, with rib cage obvious and legs about the same width as the young girl's ankles. The picture wasn't of a death camp survivor, but an ad for Yves Saint Laurent , one of fashion's premier houses. When The Advertising Standards Authority, a U.K. watchdog for the advertising world, banned the ad from publication, the fashion world was stunned. But they instead should have been stunned that the fashion world has not recognized the worsening trend for unhealthily skinny models. Isn't it time for the United States to follow Europe's lead in striking down the use of these scarecrow models?

The Skinny on Fashion Trends

Ever since the days of Twiggy in the '60s, skinny models have come to epitomize fashion. But the death of anorexic fashion model Isabelle Caro in 2010 forced many to look more closely at the harm this trend was causing for young women. France took the lead earlier this year by banning excessively thin fashion models, including fines for modeling agents and fashion houses who continue to promote them. Israel soon followed. But the YSL ad was in a British issue of Elle, leaving them free to promote their label with a model so thin that she looked beyond starving.

A Horrifying Image

Just one look at the fashion spread is enough to tell anyone why it was banned. Her limbs splayed akimbo, the shoot emphasizes the model's rail-thin arms and legs, and leaves her bosom exposed. But where one would expect to find feminine curves, instead is a clearly defined rib-cage and breast bone. Matchstick limbs look as if they could be snapped with barely a thought. The photograph is almost pornographic in its portrayal of a young girl at her most vulnerable: thin, wasted and posed to look almost tossed on the floor.

Time to Act

A decisive motion from all countries is needed to stop this kind of senseless trumping of money before life-affirming images. There was a time when fashion models were somewhat thin and without curves in order to make the clothing more important. The models were simply "hangers" for the clothing. But this trend towards edge-of-death skinniness needs to stop, and it will only do so when it is bad business sense to continue. If the U.S. followed France and Israel's lead and banned these images in all publications, and urged all other markets to join them, we could be the moral leaders we claim to be for the fashion world. Let's not wait until another model dies to make the change. Young women across the world need better role models then these starving girls in fashion magazines.