‘Vogue’ Editor Can’t Stop Anorexic Models from Showing Up, After All

"They have to be a little thinner than you and I because you always photograph a little fatter." Words of wisdom from Vogue fave Grace Coddington just as the holidays near. But this isn't a reminder from Coddington to put down the fork and do the head-tilt-turned-body-pose for holiday event pics taken by Patrick McMullan; this is Coddington's way of explaining how model anorexia comes to be. "Because they're kids, they take it too far, and they can't regulate their lives, and next thing you know they're anorexic, and it is tragic.” Her remarks come off the ripple-wave that the firing at Ralph Lauren created, a situation Coddington does not chide Lauren for. Instead, she thinks Ralph Lauren is getting too much bad publicity because most models at Ralph Lauren are not super skinny, and this is an isolated incident.

In a conversation at an event at the New York Public Library. she shares her often levelheaded views with ex-Men’s Vogue editor Jay Fielden. “Personally we’re not allowed, at Vogue, to work with girls who are very thin, but you never know, because you could book them and think they’re a certain size, and they turn up on the shoot and suddenly they’ve spun into this anorexic situation. And you’re on the spot and you have to get the job done and you have one day to do it, and what do you do? But you try to be responsible, as Anna [Wintour] is.”

I believe her, but with all that we know about Crystal Renn’s experience with gaining a bit of weight on shoots, especially in instances where her size 4 frame did not gain in inches, but just looked a bit “squat,” one has to wonder why the too-thin model wouldn’t be sent away from the photo shoot just as one who looked overweight. In her memoir, Hungry, Renn arrived in Chicago to shoot, but was turned away by the photographer who claimed she looked “huge.” Shocked, Renn reminded him, “You loved me at the casting four days ago.” The producer of the commercial shoot asked, “Did you gain 20 pounds in four days? You have to leave.”

What if she showed up looking sickly gaunt and frail instead? Famous plus-sized model Emme says the anorexic model would not be turned away, and it’s the consumers’ responsibility—not the responsibility of fashion editors like Wintour and Coddington—to change the trend. “It’s time for women to start uniting online and communicating about this, to really put their foot down. They are in the driver’s seat, because they are the ones spending the money!”