Insider speaks out on fashion industry's body-weight issue

27 Mar '07

2 min read

In New Zealand, a woman has begun a boycott campaign against Australian Consolidated Press's Fashion Quarterly, because she felt its cover girl was too young. Covered on network television there Tuesday, the programme touched on the sensitive model weight issue. The issue is comprehensively dealt with in the print edition of Lucire, from an insider's point of view.

Summer Rayne Oakes, whom for two issues was Lucire's acting editor and has been appointed its US editor, talks of her modelling career, which she started as a means to fund her university education.

Ms Oakes' 'Bust–Waist–Hip: the Skinny on Fashion's Body Weight Dilemma' in this month's Lucire reveals how her healthy body mass index of 19•4 would keep her from 80 per cent of the modelling jobs in the industry.

'I somehow am always made so aware of my choice to maintain my physique, as if it were a handicap.'

On a modelling assignment, Ms Oakes recalls how a client '[inched] closer to me and tweak my side with his thick fingers. "If you can grab it, you can lose it," he said assuredly.

'Accounts like that happen to girls more often than not. I have learned to shrug it off, though at times it is hard not to feel ostracized. … It really is an uphill battle against a hard-to-crack status quo,' writes Ms Oakes.

'We in the media need to be aware of these issues, and it is a very sensitive matter to those of us staying a step ahead in fashion,' said publisher Jack Yan.

Born on a rainy summer day in an old coal mining community of northeastern Pennsylvania, Oakes was naturally curious about her surroundings from the start. Her early interest in art and nature propelled her at six years of age to begin advanced art courses normally reserved for students much older than she.

Jack Yan