Models Circumvent Skinny Ban By Wearing Padded Spanx

Photo: Getty Images

When fashion hubs France and Italy—along with Israel and Spain—recently passed laws requiring ultra-thin models to have medically adequate body mass index numbers (usually around 18) before being hired to walk the runway, it seemed like the industry was headed in a positive, and certainly healthier, direction. (Generally, a BMI between 18.5 – 24.9 is considered normal.) The idea was to discourage anorexia and other eating disorders, and promote a more healthy body image. In France, designers and casting directors who fail to follow the new regulations face a fine, and even jail time.

But not everyone is keen on following the rules—and apparently, some people are going to some creative (and sort of silly-sounding) measures to avoid them.

According to Jennifer Sky, a former model who wrote an op-ed in the Observer (via Racked) about France’s new law, while certain models are adding weight to their thin frames to up their BMIs, they’re doing it in a… less than conventional way.

“I spoke with a model, let’s call her Lauren, who participated in Spanish Fashion Week shortly after their new ‘anti-skinny’ law was passed,” recalled Sky. “[She told me,] ‘I did Fashion Week in Spain after they enforced a similar law and agencies found a loophole. They gave us Spanx underwear to stuff with weighted sandbags so the thinnest of girls had a ‘healthy’ weight on the scales. I even saw them put weights in their hair,’” said Lauren.

And here, we’ve always seen Spanx as a product to make us look thinner—not the other way around. Who knew?

But in all seriousness, the lengths to which people are going in order to bypass the new BMI guidelines in disturbing. The point is to steer the fashion industry away from the gaunt, skeletal figures for which its become known—not outfit its starved-looking women with weights and padding. And, though Sky says that she personally disagrees with the new laws (she says she’s rather see agencies treat their young clients better than focus on their BMIs), hopefully her shedding light on these miscreants will help to improve the system overall.

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