- Position‹2 of 2
- No, the weight of fashion models should not be policed
- Argument1 of 2›
Samples from clothing companies are made for models with a thinner frame
Clothing companies send samples to modeling agencies, and they fit women with smaller thinner frames.
The argument
Those who oppose policing the weight of fashion models argue that the use of slim models follows from how sample clothing is made rather than from any judgement about bodies. A sample garment is produced to a single set of measurements, and it is not made precisely for the person who will wear it; the model must fit into the garment rather than the garment being fitted to the model. On this account a sample size is a manufacturing convention, and the models who can wear it as made are, necessarily, those with a thinner frame. The aesthetic case runs alongside the practical one. Designers want their designs to look as beautiful as possible, and what a garment does on a body – how it hangs, gathers and moves as the wearer walks – is part of the design rather than an accident of the fitting. Clothes need to be able to move freely for that to be visible, and proponents hold that fabric flows most naturally on a tall, slim frame, where a seam or a fall of cloth reads as the designer intended rather than being interrupted by the shape beneath it. Draped over a thin frame, on this view, the item simply looks better. Behind both points sits a claim about where attention should go. A fashion presentation is understood by its defenders as a presentation of clothing, not of the person wearing it; the model is the means by which the work is displayed, and designers do not want the model to outshine the clothing being modelled. If a thinner frame serves that end, then requiring designers and agencies to select models by weight would mean overriding a choice made for the garment's sake rather than correcting an arbitrary preference. That is why, on this argument, the weight of fashion models should not be policed.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Designers should send over multiple sizes of the article of clothing so that models would have the ability to fit into any of the versions. If the size is changed, it could still drape and flow off the model, with them having a standard BMI. Viewers would be able to see the article of clothing despite it being a size or two larger.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] Fashion designers could create clothes in a size or two larger, allowing for models of a healthy weight to display their designs.