Anorexia

This is one of the most disturbing and shocking ads ever done by a clothing line to depict the problem of eating disorders, especially in the fashion industry. The Italian retail store Nolita, put up these ads in billboards and newspapers all over Milan during the September 2007 fashion week, to protest and call people's attention to this deadly disease. The previous year, 22 year old Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos died from anorexia right after walking down the catwalk, a month later 21 year old Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston also died from the illness, and the next month a 14 year old Brazilian model who was just starting her career starved herself to death. Due to the unfortunate deaths of these young girls, in September of 2006 the Spanish Fashion Association decided to ban any models with a BMI under 18 to walk in their runway shows. Later that year, Italy agreed to start a campaign to raise awareness to the problem and embrace fuller body models. So it shouldn't have been such a shock when Nolita's campaign came out.

Yet, the public was quite shocked with the choice of imagery and many thought Nolita was crossing the line. The picture is meant to be shocking and thought provoking and the intention behind it, especially due to the timing of the campaign, is to remind fashion designers not to cast unhealthy girls in their shows. However, despite all the media campaign against underweight models on the runway and the claim that they would like to feature fuller bodies, in practice not a lot of fuller bodies models were seen in the shows. The models continued just as skinny as they were in the previous years and only now in 2010, do we see a slight change in the casting of runways and even magazines such as LOVE. Eating disorders is a somewhat taboo topic in the fashion industry, because the girls are expected to have a 34-24-34 body proportion and while instructed to eat healthy to maintain that structure, some opt for a more drastic and quicker approach. The pressure to maintain the slim figure can be very overwhelming and many times if they can't fulfill it they will resort to desperate measures. Girls need to maintain that measurement because for designers those are the best measurements to display their clothes on, and when the models do not fit into that proportion they will not get the job. The problem is that because of this expectation to be so skinny a lot of young girls are endangering their lives to succumb to the industry's social pressure. This campaign is meant to address that issue not only in the fashion world but more importantly to the consumers that look at these campaigns and magazines and want to look like the models. The social standards of beauty and body image are highly shaped by the entertainment and fashion industry, so when a fashion company presents this message, that company is certainly doing a good and brave social deed. Nolita's ad did a great job in portraying the urgency of this fatal illness and fashion taboo, hopefully opening the eyes of many girls that struggle with their body image.