KEY POINTS:
ROME - Hopes that the Italian fashion industry was about to turn its back on the x-ray look and embrace a more rounded model of beauty were crushed yesterday after the director of a top model agency heaped scorn on an agreement reached between the industry and the Government.
The so-called "manifesto" was intended to prevent girls who suffer from eating disorders working as models. Aspiring models will be required to show a doctor's certificate declaring them to be healthy, taking into account their body mass index (BMI), the key index of healthy weight.
The Italian industry had fiercely resisted efforts to impose an outright ban on models with a BMI under 18, like that imposed in Madrid last September, and persuaded the Government that self-regulation would do the trick. But Mario Gori, the boss of the Glamour modelling agency, has dismissed the agreement as "totally useless".
"If the BMI of 18 had to be respected ... not even Naomi Campbell, who has a BMI of 16, would be allowed to model. But I challenge anyone to say that Naomi is anorexic."
Leading designer Fausto Sarli said: "Only two or three are really anorexic. They work for Armani, for Valentino. How are you going to throw them out?"
Nathalie Rykiel of the Sonia Rykiel group said: "The distance between the girls who exhibit and those who flip through the magazines must be the same as that between the hero of a novel and the reader. Fashion is not responsible for anorexia."
- INDEPENDENT
