Public scrutiny of the dangerously thin appearance of several runway models this fall served to divide the fashion industry between those who agreed with calls for regulation and those who did not see a problem, like Stefano Gabbana, who told Women's Wear Daily, "Backstage we have food and I always see models eating — sometimes more than me."
But the issue, as some predicted, has not faded in the months since organisers of the Madrid Fashion Week announced a ban on models who did not achieve a body mass index considered healthy by the standards of the World Health Organisation. After initially saying that they would not follow the example set in Madrid, representatives of the Italian government and its fashion trade group, the Camera Nazionale, said recently that they would promote a national campaign against anorexia and what they described as "a national manifesto of self-regulation."
"From what I can tell, there is a growing insight among designers, or people are beginning to see the negative effects of what dangerously thin young women are going through," said Steven Kolb, the executive director of the American council. "It is something that they were aware of and were processing. Now the issue is coming to a point where the industry is more collectively focused on it." Kolb said that American designers began to revisit the subject, which had overshadowed London's Fashion Week in September, after the recent death of a Brazilian model, Ana Carolina Reston, from complications of anorexia. Madrid's initial response had followed the death of a Uruguayan model, Luisel Ramos. Mario Boselli, the president of the Camera Nazionale, said that the group began to study the issue after the September women's collections in Milan. "They will be very balanced rules which, starting from objective facts related also to the guidelines" of the World Health Organisation, Boselli said, will leave to a doctor a final written decision about the physical suitability of the model.