A Swedish modelling agency has been accused of staking out a treatment centre for eating disorders scouting for anorexic ‘talent’.
Director of the Stockholm clinic Anna-Maria af Sandeberg said head hunters had approached ill patients, one wheelchair bound, hoping to recruit them.
Kirstie Clements: Thin is in because designers demand it
“They were outside the building and waited for the girls to go out for a walk,” she told Swedish news agency TT.
“One of those contacted was in a wheelchair because she was so skinny.”
The incident, which Ms Sandeberg says took place several months ago, involved girls as young as 14 with serious illnesses being approached by agency representatives who had studied the girls’ routines and knew when they would be outside.
“We think it’s repugnant. People have stood outside our clinic and tried to pick up our girls because they know they are very thin,” Ms Sandeberg told the Metro newspaper.
“It sends to wrong signals when the girls are being treated for eating disorders.”
The director of Elite Model Management agency in Stockholm was shocked at the alleged recruitment method employed by the agency which the clinic did not name, describing it as “disgusting and unethical”.
“I do not think that any large, serious agencies work this way,” he told TT.
In her novel The Vogue Factor, former Vogue editor Kirstie Clements writes about “Paris-thin” women being glorified in the international fashion industry that holds up unhealthily thin models as attractive.
“I was at the baggage carousel with a fashion editor collecting our luggage after a trip and I noticed an extremely anorexic woman standing nearby,” Clements writes in her book.
“She was the most painfully thin person I had ever seen and my heart went out to her. I pointed her out to the editor who scrutinised the poor woman and said, ‘I know it sounds terrible, but I think she looks really great.’ The industry is rife with this level of body dysmorphia from mature women.”
The former editor who spent her entire career in fashion recalls a swimsuit casting at the Vogue office, which happened to be situated across from an eating disorder clinic in Sydney, in the late ’90s.
“The Clinic also happened to house the only cafe near the office. I walked over to buy a fat-free chicken sandwich after the casting had wrapped up and regarded the pale, young, female patients on portable IV drips, smoking in the courtyard in their dressing gowns. The sad irony did not escape me that none of the gorgeous models we had seen that day had been considered suitable to wear a bikini in Vogue,” she writes.
Skinny scandal: Photoshop used to fatten fashion week models
Concerns have been raised internationally over the fashion industry promoting extreme thinness — an issue showcased at Australian fashion week earlier this month.
Earlier this year, Isreal banned models with a body mass index below 18.5 from photo shoots and advertising campaigns.
Other countries, including Australia, have introduced a voluntary code of conduct encouraging the fashion industry to be responsible in casting healthy looking models.
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