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Skinny scandal: Photoshop used to fatten fashion week models

Body image debate: Photoshopping models to look 'normal' is not the answer

Ultra-thin models at Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Week

Models at Australian fashion week are so shockingly thin fashion bloggers are Photoshopping them to cover up their protruding bones.

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Fashion publications are often lambasted for using Photoshop to slim down models and celebrities but while covering Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia, editor of fashion blog Style Melbourne Sarah Willcocks, has had to smooth out one model’s shoulder bones for fear of “glamourising” her scarily skinny frame.

Kirstie Clements: Thin is in because designers demand it

Ms Willcocks says while she is generally anti-airbrushing, one image from the Maticevski show on Tuesday was too shocking to leave untouched.

“I don’t like to Photoshop images a lot but this one particular photo from the Maticevski show, it didn’t look beautiful, it didn’t look appealing,” she told aww.com.au.

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She said she posted the images because she thought the dress was beautiful and wanted to share it, but felt the need to digitally alter the image as she did not want to promote the “unhealthy-looking” woman.

“It was because I don’t want my readers thinking bones are glamorous or beautiful,” she said.

“I don’t see how skinniness or looking unhealthy equals beautiful.”

Attending fashion week shows with other fashion bloggers and journalists, Ms Willcocks said she noticed more whispers about gaunt models who “looked really hungry” and “tired”, and that sharp bones protruding from stick-thin frames were “distracting from the clothes”.

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Kirstie Clements: Thin is in because designers demand it

This year’s MBFWA was billed as a celebration of fashion, art and culture, but has instead become a hive of controversy with health concerns for dangerously thin models overshadowing designers’ handiwork.

Medical experts have called for mandatory health checks for models amid revelations designers are sending women with waists the size of seven-year-old girls down the catwalk, and disorientated models collapsing on the job.

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