The Furor Over an Anorexia Ad

Friday, Sep. 28, 2007
The Furor Over an Anorexia Ad
By Jeff Israely /Rome

The fashion world is all about timing, finding that perfect moment to launch the Next Big Thing. So it's not surprising that the upstart Italian clothing designer Nolita chose to unveil its latest ad campaign just in time for Europe's current round of catwalk shows for the spring-summer collections. But rather than politely join the parties in Milan and Paris, it has crashed them.

With a shocking photograph of a naked anorexic woman, shot by Oliviero Toscani, the eternal enfant terrible of fashion photography, Nolita's is the latest attempt to employ a formula that Toscani helped invent with Benetton in the 1980s: the use of provocative, socially conscious images to help hawk products. (And, in theory, the images attempt to accomplish the inverse as well: using consumerism to try to raise public awareness.) In the past, Toscani has used photographs of AIDS victims and death-row inmates in Benetton ads. But this time, the message is also targeted at the very industry that is selling the goods. The problem of eating disorders has long plagued the fashion world, with the proliferation of super-thin models whom critics say not only harm themselves, but establish unhealthy role models for young female consumers. Criticism peaked last year when a 21-year-old Brazilian model died from the effects of anorexia.

While public figures and several designers in Italy expressed support for Nolita's ad campaign during the Milan fashion week, the campaign has also drawn criticism as runways are set to open in Paris this weekend. Didier Grumbach, head of the French Couture Federation, lashed out at the fashion house. "I find this absolutely scandalous," he told the AFP. "Winning notoriety through people's illness is painful. What we're seeing here is sensationalism by a label, to the detriment of an extremely serious social problem."

The stark picture of the emaciated French-born actress Isabelle Caro — who stands 5 feet, 5 inches tall (1.65 m) and weighs just 70 pounds (32 kg) — is accompanied by the words: "No Anorexia." Caro, now 27, says she has suffered from the disorder since she was a teenager. In a statement on its website, Nolita defended the ad, which has appeared on giant billboards and leading newspapers in Italy. "Toscani literally stripped his subject, to show everyone through this nude body the reality of this illness, which in the majority of cases is caused by stereotypes caused by the fashion world." Toscani, who says he learned about eating disorders while working in the fashion industry, dismissed suggestions made by an anti-anorexia group in Italy that girls would look to Caro as someone to emulate. "Looking at my ad, girls with anorexia would say to themselves that they have to stop dieting," he said. "When you do something extreme, there are always people who oppose it. It shouldn't be the photos that shock, but the reality." The fashion industry has grown accustomed to watching its waiflike, barely clad female models slither down the runway. Toscani hopes they never look the same way again.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1666556,00.html

as fat, no matter what), but it certainly will be effective of waking others that are around those people to what anorexia is and also maybe wake up the view in people that "thin" and waiflike is not attractive....

Very sad indeed...I've had some friends who have suffered since they were as young as 10 with anorexia and/or bulimia and its awful...One friend of mine is still struggling with it and even though she's gotten back to a healthy weight and is in treatment, she still thinks she is fat, even though she is a size 6. (she thought being a 2 was the right size). And she also has had many miscarriages and hasn't been able to keep a pregnancy as a result of the weight issue and what it did to her body.

It is very sad. I was told "not to mention her weight to her".

Being I never see her, I haven't.

She was primed by her mother (a big laxative taker) to be certain to never go beyond a size 1 early on. It is truly a sickening situation. :puke: literally.

They all smoke all the time and you never see them eat anything more than a piece of candy. I'm sure they pity those of us who carry a few extra pounds. If someone orders in a big lunch to treat us they walk through the room but don't pick up any food, as if just walking through the room is bad enough. And yet none of them weighs an extra ounce, they could each gain 15-20 pounds and still not be overweight at all. It must be torture.

and may or may not be influenced by fashion trends. The fashion industry anorexia isn't that much different than the weightlifters or wrestlers that go on extreme diets. If they can pull it off it gives them some perks. This also occurs in ballet and dance.

Alot of experts believe body dysmorphia is actually unaffected by what other people think anyways, that it cannot be directly attributed to culture (indirectly, maybe). It's all about self-image and a feeling of powerlessness, and likely has a strong biological component (abnormal brain function), and there may be a cultural component as well if people are pressured to excel, always be in control or have the approval of others. There are alot of similarities to obsessive compulsive disorders and depression. Somebody who is psychoticly depressed will actually believe they are responsible for evils in the world that a rational person couldn't possibly connect with. Likewise a person with anorexia has no idea what a healthy body looks like. So people with anorexia will look at somebody who looks like a starving 3rd worlder or concentration camp survivor, and not connect the dots in their head, anyways.

I have known several anorexics, and none were the least bit influenced by the fashion industry. It seems as much an issue of control as anything.

This advertisement is for profit exploitation of someone's illness and I don't think it should be celebrated.

Most fashion models are naturally thin and are very healthy. To accuse them all of anorexia is as insulting as accusing all athletes of using steroids.

just to sell a product, I think this goes beyond that, using this woman's illness to show what we are buying into as a culture when we glorify sickly thinness in women.

I hope it moves people.