Topshop has taken a graphic off its website after being called out by the Daily Mail and various anti-eating disorder groups.
The Mail first spotted the "painfully thin size-zero model" Codie Young on the store's website last week, writing, "The pale young woman with a gaunt face is seen on the fashion stores homepage wearing tiny clothes that hang off her skeletal frame."
At the time, Helen Davies from the British anorexia charity Beat told the newspaper, "This is not the sort of thing we want to see in magazines and on the internet. It's a constant battle against eating disorders and Topshop is not helping matters. For girls who see these kind of images it can be very damaging."
Andrew Leahy, Topshop's head of publicity, since reached out to the Mail, explaining, "Topshop is confident that Codie is a healthy young woman and we do not feel it necessary to remove her from our imagery based on your feature. However we do recognise regretfully that the angle this image has been shot at may accentuate Codie's proportions making her head look bigger and neck longer in proportion to her body. [...] The clothes she is wearing are a sample size 10 so in some instances they may look a little looser than normal."
In any case, Leahy adds, "Topshop is proud of its heritage of celebrating individual-looking girls who offer an alternative more unusual beauty, however we take your comments very seriously," resulting in the removal of the photograph and its replacement with a different pic of the model from another angle.
18-year-old Codie took to her blog, remarking that she was hurt by all of the comments:
The modeling industry has a seemingly never-ending supply of under-20 supermodels in the making, declaring each and everyone one of them "the breakout star of the season."
But amid all of this underage madness, there still exist models at or over the age of 35 (more than twice as old as newcomers Nyasha Matonhodze and Nine d'Urso) who not only still get work, but look awesome doing it.
Considered ancient in industry terms, these models haven't let the number of years they've been on this planet prevent them from scoring coveted ad campaigns or covering high fashion glossies. Lauren Hutton bagged the latest Alexis Bittar campaign at the ripe age of 67, while Kristen McMenamy's flowing gray locks and bikini-clad body graced the cover of a recent Vogue Italia issue.
This group of stunning women prove that, believe it or not, it is possible to look beautiful and model clothing without being a schoolgirl.
Mia Amber Davis, the plus-size model and "Road Trip" actress who unexpectedly passed away during routine knee surgery in May, died from a blood clot in her lungs, E! Online reports.
The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office released an updated death certificate after an autopsy and a series of toxicology tests were performed, finding that Davis had a pulmonary thrombo-embolism.
According to TMZ.com, Davis' husband Michael Yard believes that the surgery was responsible for the blood clot, claiming Davis was healthy before arriving at the hospital. The site explains, he "asked the Coroner's Officer if it meant she died as a result of the surgery...but the office said they could not give a definitive answer."
Davis' death shocked her supporters two months ago. The beauty was best-known for her work with Ashley Stewart, being the face of Jill Scott's Butterfly Bra, a cameo in the movie "Road Trip," and serving as Creative Editor-at-Large for Plus Model Magazine.
Editor Madeline Jones wrote in a blog post on Wednesday:
Protestors at this season's Sao Paulo Fashion Week called for a 20 percent quota of indigenous and black models to be used on the event's runways, the Guardian reports.
Back in 2008, the BBC wrote that only 28 out of 1,128 models booked for Sao Paulo Fashion Week that year were black. As one modeling agent said, "The black models can't get jobs and have no access, don't have a good distribution of money or earnings and live in a sub-world, because there are no job opportunities."
And the New York Times reported on the issue last summer, writing, "70 percent of the country's models come from three southern states that hardly reflect the multiethnic melting pot that is Brazil, where more than half the population is nonwhite." Erika Palomino, a fashion consultant in Sao Paulo, told the newspaper, "I was always perplexed that Brazil was never able to export a Naomi Campbell, and it is definitely not because of a lack of pretty women. It is embarrassing."
Organizers previously agreed to a 10 percent quota of black models. But the plan apparently unraveled this time around, with designers ignoring the modish minorities altogether.
Activist Frei Davi Santos explained to the Guardian:
"Sao Paulo fashion week sells the image of a Swiss Brazil where everyone is white and blue-eyed. The organizers...forget that more than half of Brazil's population is black....According to the latest census we blacks represent 50.8% of the Brazilian population. This means an event which presents a majority of people with typically European characteristics does not represent the beauty and wealth of Brazilian ethnicity. Brazil is a country that still insists on emphasizing its European side and discriminating against its beautiful indigenous and Afro-Brazilian populations. We do not want catwalks that look like catwalks in Switzerland or England."
