A model presents a creation by Italian designer Giorgio Armani
© AFP Filippo Monteforte By Sophie Hardach
MILAN (Reuters) - Milan fashion week is resisting calls for a ban on underweight models amid a debate on super-thin girls and eating disorders that has gripped the public but elicits bored yawns from designers.
Madrid earlier this month asked models below a certain weight to stay away from its shows, but on the catwalks in Milan there were plenty of girls with stick-thin arms and gaunt faces.
Mario Boselli, head of the Italian fashion industry's chamber of commerce, told Reuters on Tuesday there were no plans to copy Madrid.
Speaking on the phone between fashion shows, he said he had seen "maybe one girl among a hundred" that could be defined as too skinny and that there was no need for regulations.
Media had reported that Milan was adopting its own set of rules to protect models, but Boselli said those regulations were merely part of Italian law, were not new and had nothing to do with the weight issue.
"There's been a misunderstanding. We follow the Italian labour law, which means that underage models must have a health certificate, show that they attend school and be accompanied. But that applies to all minors, not just models," he said.
Burberry's designer Christopher Bailey, celebrating backstage with a crowd including his model friend Stella Tennant, a lean and towering mother-of-four, also opposed specific rules.
"I don't think it's so simple, I'm very thin and I eat like a horse...I think it's something we all have to be conscious and sensible about, we have to use common sense," he said.
When asked whether he had ever refused to employ a model because she was too thin, he declined to comment further.
At the 1980s-inspired show of Dolce & Gabbana's D&G label, girls with stork-like legs ending in chunky platform shoes trotted down the catwalk, their tiny waists narrowed even further by tightly girded belts and corsets.
Backstage before the show, 18-year-old Heather Marks from Canada, her fragile frame huddled in a big black jacket, said she personally had never felt pressure to stay thin.
"This season there are a lot of really thin girls. So many of the new girls are 14 so they are going to be super-thin because they haven't reached puberty," she said.
Marks was sitting in a corner reading Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream for school while around her, make-up artists and hair stylists buzzed over dozens of big-eyed, porcelain-skinned models.
"You do see a lot of girls, mostly Russian, where you don't know if they're naturally thin," Marks added.
But speaking to models from Russia and Eastern Europe at another fashion show, the response was always the same: we are naturally thin, we have never felt any pressure to loose weight.
"We're tall -- I'm 1.80 metres so it wouldn't look good if I were big," said 22-year-old Ekaterina Kashyntsera, a striking Ukrainian with short, dark hair who said she excercised and ate healthily to stay in shape. "But it's your own choice. If you don't want to, you can leave."
© Reuters