Spanish fashion show rejects 5 women

I guess they are really serious:

The organizers of Spain's top annual fashion show on Sunday rejected five out of 69 fashion models as being too thin to appear in this year's event, acting on a decision to bar underweight women from the catwalk.

The show, known as the Pasarela Cibeles, decided in September 2005 not to allow women below a body mass to height ratio of 18 to take part.

One of the rejected models had only reached a ratio of 16, the equivalent of being 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing less than 110 pounds, said Dr. Susana Monereo, of Madrid Getafe hospital's endocrinology and nutrition department, who along with two other doctors was in charge of assessing the models.

Monereo said this represented "extreme thinness."

I was wondering how serious they were about this, or whether it was some kind of publicity stunt that would be mildly enforced. Looks like they are serious. If other fashion shows adopt similar policies, they may be able to make substantial changes in the industry.

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Very true Martin R.... women look better curvy. The fashion industry has a lot to answer for in terms of this obsession we have with thinness.

Good to see the Spanish leading the way.

Maybe these fashion designers will have to try and design clothes for women, rather than ones that look good on walking coat hangers

By G. Shelley (not verified) on 15 Feb 2007 #permalink

Since that occurred in the European Union, their Health Nazi Authority could have just required that there be one overweight model for every model showing "extreme thinness" !!

By John J. Coupal (not verified) on 20 Feb 2007 #permalink