“Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels.” As is well known, the sentence comes from Kate Moss, who shaped the zeitgeist as a super-thin supermodel in the nineties and noughties. It was called “Heroin Chic” back then. And which decade last celebrated a major revival in fashion? That’s right, the late ’90s and early ’00s. And how do many models look again since then? That’s right again: extra lean. The development could already be observed on the catwalks in the last two seasons, at the show marathon that ended last week, more bones seemed to protrude on the collarbones, the legs of some girls fell more into the category of Mikado sticks.
It had briefly looked as if the industry would actually move. Plus size, inclusivity and diversity were the new buzzwords. From 2016 onwards there were suddenly top models like Ashley Graham or Paloma Elsesser with clothing sizes around 44, who were booked up and down and were allowed to appear on the covers of fashion magazines that were otherwise exclusive in every respect. Even luxury brands like Fendi or Versace sent girls with clear curves down the catwalk and were celebrated for their generosity. The one just from Vogue Business and the catwalk search engine tag walk However, published data shows that the number of so-called plus and midsize models has already decreased significantly again.
Ashley Graham also walked for Dolce & Gabbana in Milan this year. However, it remains an exception in the meager cosmos of fashion weeks worldwide.
(Photo: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)
Compared to the Fashion Weeks in September, the proportion fell by 24 percent, instead of 90 this time only 68 brands had models larger than size 34 in the casting, which was mostly a single alibi girl. Chanel is already considered a notable exception with three mid-size models – with a total of 66 designs. This corresponds to a share of less than five percent. Only in London, where mainly young labels such as Nensi Dojaka or Sinéad O’Dwyer are showing, was there more variety.
Most in the industry only shrug their (often rather narrow) shoulders in boredom. This plus thing was just a trend, the spook over, everything is going “back to normal” again, whereby normal here just means skinny. Most designers just prefer their clothes to hang flat on the body. It’s a bit odd, of course: while demand usually regulates supply, this is obviously not the case in fashion. In any case, in Germany women wear an average size of 42 to 44, in the USA it is even more like a 46, and the desire for beautiful clothes does not decrease with increasing weight. On the contrary, the global market for large sizes is growing much faster than that for small ones. According to the market research institute NPD, it grew three times as fast between 2019 and 2021 alone, and this year the total volume is expected to reach 288 billion dollars. A, exactly: “big business”, as is emphasized again and again.
Why aren’t the catwalks and adverts reflecting that? A common explanation is that fashion sells dreams. And what do most women still dream of today – rather of being thin or of being fat?