The Glamour Spell

The months that follow New York City’s Fashion Week are very busy. Critics talk about the designers that rocked their collections and about those who should probably retire from the fashion industry. They also talk about which catwalk was the best and which ones made the public sleep. But one thing that has been ignored over the past years is the force labor that makes Fashion Week possible: the models. Ashley Mears decided she would not let this issue remain unattended so she wrote the article Poor Models. Seriously. for the New York Times.

Having been a model before, Mears understands how modeling works: “That and a buck will get you a cup of coffee.” She remembers how at her first fashion show at age nineteen, she lied to the casting agents and said she was eighteen. “We are meat and it gets bad as it gets old,” said a Parisian male model to Mears at a recent interview. She discusses some conditions models have to go through and how even after fulfilling all requirements, models are not treated fairly. Ashley Mears, now an assistant professor of sociology at Boston University says she “feels lucky to have a job with a future.”

Why does being “a paid beauty” bring no future? In what ways does modeling become grueling? How can all of this change?

I agree with Ashley Mears completely. Things have to be done and the issue cant be ignored anymore because not only is it happening in America but in the rest of world too. I might love fashion, glamour and style but I also love to stand up for what I believe is right. Like Mears, more models or ex-models should speak out and let the world know the conditions in which they are working. After all, the fashion world wouldn’t be the same without them. Some solutions can be organizing alliances or groups that can serve models in organizing what they do to create real jobs. For example, the nonprofit group Model Alliance created by Sara Ziff. Ziff is a model working with Fordham University’s Fashion Law Institute. Another issue that can’t be left unspoken is the big number of models that have eating disorders.

“We shouldn’t miss the opportunity to change the terms of fashion’s labor,” says Ashley Mears. I support her opinion and will hopefully make others notice the conditions fashion labor is going through. Fashion doesn’t have to be linked with any type of drawback and discomfort. Anorexia is not in this season.

Here I include a video in which some famous top models are interviewed during Fashion Week. What Do New York Fashion Week Models Eat? Watch carefully for this part: “The last delicious meal? I can’t even remember the last time I ate a meal.”

Vocabulary:

grueling- (adj.) extremely tiring and demanding