Article Actually, High Fashion Models are a Feminist Statement

Their slimness and “lack of assets” (small boobs and small butt) allows for the garments to flow better and give designers more wiggle room to make mistakes.

Make mistakes? At this level? Then perhaps you shouldn’t be designing for women if you can’t competently work with the existence of boobs.

Oh, and thanks to social media, high fashion models reveal that the skinniness is due to disordered eating brought on by the designers telling them to look skinnier. And they enter the modelling business as teenagers. Years later and she’s still struggling with disordered eating.

Oh, yeah. That’s is some real female empowerment right there. /s

I love high fashion models, and I love how much they piss everyone off. What many people fail to realize is that the main consumers of fashion are women

Who are the main beneficiaries of the money women spend on fashion? Men. Male designers and male-led corporations. Further, most women do not spend any money on high fashion as couture is for a very specific group of wealthy women. Most women wear fast-fashion, which is manufactured by male-led corporations and the money spent on fashion does little if anything to benefit women as a class.

Models are not supposed to be attractive to men, shit, they’re not even supposed to be attractive at all. They are supposed to repel a man’s gaze completely.

Considering that female models are thought by many to be some of the most beautiful women in the world, I am not sure why the author thinks fashion models are repellent to men. They are a status symbol for many celebrity men and many models are household names because they are considered so beautiful. I doubt men find Naomi Campbell, Giselle Bundchen or Bella Hadid unattractive.

Many feminists argue that high fashion models set unrealistic beauty standards. They seem to forget that there are practical reasons for why fashion models look the way that they do. Their height makes them easier to be seen on the runway by the audience and show the designer’s garment in its full glory.

So what if their purpose is to be a clothes hanger for male designers clothes? Why do the “practical reasons” listed negate the feminist criticism that the models are promoting unrealistic beauty standards? And in order to promote these standards, the models must subject their bodies to severe punishment. How many former models have admitted to having eating disorders or have spoken about the fact that they have been pressured to remain unhealthily underweight?

Another issue that the author doesn’t mention is that many models start modeling when they are under-age. How can 12-13 year old girls consent to modeling? Is it healthy for girls going through puberty to maintain such low body weight?

This is fantastic! What could be more feminist than that?

Just because a woman enjoys something does not mean that it is a feminist statement and it doesn’t need to be celebrated in feminist spaces either.

Here is a link to some choice quotes made by Karl Lagerfeld about women.

That read like a lot of nonsense to me.

There is nothing feminist about high fashion shows. I say this as someone who has had an interest in haute couture since a young teen (I like the creative aspect). YouTube constantly recommends me shows and I watch the more interesting looking ones if I'm on YouTube.

High fashion is of course about a) making money and b) creative expression. But creative expression, especially as done by primarily male designers, is often a vehicle for the cultural ethos on women. High fashion invariably repackages performative femininity in new, creative, and appealing ways for women. Yes, it appeals primarily to women and not men; that's because it's selling the performative femininity to women and not to men.

I still watch them occasionally, because I appreciate a good execution of an art form, but I don't kid myself that they're feminist. I also don't think it's the model's thinness that's really problematic (most of them look healthy these days, certainly healthier than an overweight model would be - they're just super tall and that leads to a lanky thin look)... it's the content of the shows themselves, if you watch enough of them, that does it. Designers often talk of "stories they're telling" with their show, but the story that is told in aggregate, is one of female subordination (various clothing designs, the performative femininity, etc).

Except fashion is doninated by gay men but ok

Why do we have to want buy clothes multiple times a year based on styles that change with the seasons? And then you need to accessorize and hair and makeup and those should all change with the outfit. And then I put the clothes on and they never look like they do on the model! And I really want them to look like they look on the model, and the closer I get to looking like the model, who is 6'2 and 100 pounds, the better I think I look. But the model is so thin and I will never be that thin, but I want to be. Feminism!

You have to have the build of a tall, lanky man to be a model. Sometimes breasts are required. Usually not. Women don't run the fashion industry.