Size zero mantra wears thin

Anna Wallis PHOTO/FILE

Comments by World co-founder Denise L'Estrange-Corbet that clothes look better on skinny people need clarification.

She should have said: "Clothes look better on skinny people who, on the whole, will have starved themselves to look that way in order to be a model."

The clothes designer made the comments on breakfast TV about the use of mannequins with visible ribs by fashion chain Glassons. It follows a trend by fashion houses to use thinner models on the catwalk - the size 0 phenomenon.

Ms L'Estrange-Corbet may argue it's just her opinion but opinions matter and opinions from people who have influence matter considerably.

Fashion designers are not the only ones with skin in this game. Actresses, singers and other celebrities are observing thinner and thinner standards. They often come with the mantra they eat like a horse and don't have to work out because they are born that way, which is as ludicrous as it sounds.

And nearly everyone buys into it ... except Emily Robins, the actress, singer and law student who took umbrage at a Glassons mannequin because she was worried about its effect on her 17-year-old daughter. And that's how she came to debate the issue with Ms L'Estrange-Corbet on TV.

The fashion industry sets standards for beauty that are impossible to meet without starving. The pressure on young women in the industry are so well documented it's absurd to deny they don't exist.

Former Australian Vogue editor Kirstie Clements said in The Guardian last year that models often lived on Diet Coke and cigarettes. "That the ideal body shape used as a starting point for a collection should be a female on the brink of hospitalisation from starvation is frightening," she said.

Glassons should care deeply about the image it projects to customers. Many are young women, and easy prey for a perverted culture that demands skeletal hip and collar bones as the new black.