Body Image Activist, Eating Disorders mamaVISION

They call themselves the CFDA, the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Let’s make them more REAL.

Here is the board of directors, count the designers you purchase clothes from:

Many designers have now gone mainstream, take Vera Wang for example now selling at Kohl’s. Why does this matter? Because these leaders are no longer selling haute couture, they are going for the big bucks and distributing to us regular people.

This means their trends lead the way. If they are cutting skirts at size 0, this our OUR baseline. This is the number that resonates in our head when we look at that tag and try to squeeze into the ideal they have set for us (average waist size of an 8 year old girl by the way).

Membership is exclusive. To be a part of this elite club, one must be voted in.

The list of 300 designers can be viewed in full here, including familiar names such as Tommy Hilfiger, Betsy Johnson, Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, Perry Ellis.

In order to bend the ear of the big wigs, we need to impact the daily lives of the staff, those that really run the show. They are:

Danielle and Karen are in charge of PR, that stands for “Public Relations.” It’s interesting that their voicemail box is full yet I have not received a call back, have you?

Got a problem with the size zero trend? NOW is the time to express your view to these fashion influencers since February 1st marks the start of New York Fashion Week.

Call them, email them, tell them your opinion and viewpoint.

Phone #: 212-302-1821

Email

Key word here being YOUR opinion and viewpoint, not mine.

In a previous post on this topic, you asked “if we call, what should we say?”

Say your thoughts, ask them what they are doing about the model’s health initiative? What progress has been made in the year since its launch? I am just planting the seeds, you need to make them grow in whatever direction you please.

Go get em’ ladies.

-mamaV

Girls live and breathe fashion. It’s part of our chemistry. We love to decorate ourselves, pose in the mirror, chat endlessly about the latest style of clothes, handbags, shoes, accessories, you name it. We couldn’t look away from fashion if we tried. We are a captive audience for fashion designers.

Dead: February 13, 2007

Age: 18

Height: 5’9”

Weight: not reported

Hila Elmalich

Perhaps most disturbing, is the drawn out death of Hila Elmalich. Long time friend, fashion photographer Adi Barkan, video recorded Emma’s disturbing life and eventual death. The still images of Emma collapsed in Ade Barkan’s arms are a bit to real to bear. After years of struggling to beat her anorexia, Hila passed away on her 34^th birthday.

Dead: November 14, 2007

Age: 34

Height: 5’6

Weight: 60lbs.

You are cordially invited to call, email, and generally piss off the royal Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) as we count down the days to New York Fashion Week starting February 1st, 2008

Logo and Image from the new CFDA website, nice skeleton.

These are the morons that launched the lamest “health initiative” to date. This was your basic cover their ass strategy devised after four, count em’ 4, models died in the past year and a half.

Not from anorexia, but emaciation (that’s two levels PAST anorexia) according to the World Health Organization.

Deceased models from left: Hila, Luisel & Eliana Ramos (yes they are sisters), and Ana.

I’ve had a great time calling over the past year, paying them an undercover visit back in May, and most recently actually getting a hold of a live person on the phone which knocked me off my chair (although she was quite snippy).

Director of Public Relations, Karen Petersen, took the time to speak to me only to quickly rush me off the phone. She was unwilling to provide any update on their year old iniative (my guess is because there is none), and then briskly assured me I would hear back from her PR Manager Danielle Billingkoff.

No word yet and not holding my breath. Not good PR ladies.

I don’t want you to have to google their number, since they conveniently left it off their web site, so here it is:

Phone number 212-302-1821

Oh, and in order to contact the CFDA you have to hunt their web site, it’s buried in the damn site map, nice:

Email form here

Feel free to ask them to call me back, they have my number. Or, simply ask them questions of your own, like “what the hell have you done in the year since you launched your CYA strategy?”

Here’s me doing some stalking of my own.

This week LATimes asks the question “Is Skinny Going Out Of Style? ” The ultra-thin model issue remains at the forefront thanks to designer Diane von Furstenberg’s letter to the Council of Fashion Designers of America urging them to take a position on the issue of underweight models.

Frankly, it’s pathetic that someone of von Furstenberg’s status needs to literally sit down and draft a letter to her cohorts in the Fashion Industry asking them actually look their beloved, pre-teen models in the eyes and see their pain.

Put aside the designers themselves for a moment, and let’s talk about the audience. Anyone who sat there during this show, and watched this obviously sick, young girl prance the damn “catwalk”, as it is favorably called, and didn’t react should be ashamed of yourselves.

How do you watch this, see her bones literally sticking out of her frail frame, the dark circles under her eyes, and the pain in her expression, and clap for this year’s amazing collections, yelling “Bravo” to the warped designers who created this monster of a business?

This whole thing is totally beyond me.

Von Furstenbery recognized this as a global fashion issue and stated ”as designers, we cannot ignore the impact fashion has on body image. We share a responsibility to protect women, and very young girls in particular, within the industry, sending the message that health is beauty.”

We need to share in this responsibility…remember that each one of those fashion magazines you purchase only drives this business. So, think about ditching them. What do they do for your self esteem besides send you deeper into your body image issues? Free yourself of this trap and how happy you will be.

I got a bad feeling, skinny ain’t going out of style anytime soon.

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7 million women and 1 million men have anorexia, an epidemic level according to the National Assn. of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders of Highland Park, Ill.

If you need help, please call the ANAD hotline, 847-831-3438 (Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm, Central Time)