But the outcry is about, wait for it, money!

Not everyone can be superthin and tall, but many many women are beautiful. I looked at the photos and the girls did look unprofessional but pretty.

So when a designer uses "unprofessionals" it does threaten every "real" model out there. If a designer can show that their clothes will be purchased whether size 2's or size 8's are used on the runway, many models high priced paychecks dwindle away and competetion grows. I myself really don't understand how the fashion industry works, why some models make millions and others are scraping by, do people buy clothes based on the models who wear them? I know that when I buy clothes I have no idea if it was ever on a runway or which model wore it, but I'm also not wealthy enough to shop at Givenchy or Dolce & Gabbana. I have a friend who is breathtaking, tall goregeous we all thought model worthy. So she started trying to model and the first thing they told her was if she couldn't lose 20 pounds no one would hire her. So a 5'9 girl with flawless honey colored skin, long heatlthy blonde hair, huge eyes and basically everyone was captivated by her beauty was told her size 6 body was too fat. She being a reasonable girl with self esteem decided that she liked eating and would continue to do so and decided modeling just wasn't for her.

Plenty of models have coke habits for a reason.

The article states that the women were, on average, a size 14. Thus, they were not a size 8, as the headline implies.

Also, I must be honest, to me, the women had slightly misshapen bodies, mildly bloated stomachs, dimpled flesh, essentially, irregular bodies. They did, however, have pretty faces and they would not have looked out of place at the beach.

The models were size 8 to 12:

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,,20368417-10388,00.html?from=public_rss

The average Australian is size 14.

Even a great idea can suffer from lousy execution: if the designer used inexperienced or nonprofessional models, she actually ends up hurting her own wise vision. I bet you this catches on and next time the models will know their trade - or how ever you describe modeling.

Granted, I'm just looking at 8 pictures and not their runway walk, but from the looks of it, all models were thin yet many had gawky poses. Maybe it really wasn't their size that was so offending but the fact that, being unprofessionals, they really didn't know how to play to the camera.

I'm all for size 6-10 models but they should at least look like they know what they're doing.

Australian 14 is not the same as American size 14; in fact it corresponds roughly to American size 8, so the headline is not incorrect. However, I'd like to know what exactly a size 8 means these days, given the rapid resizing of women's fashions. I've weighed the same, give or take 5 pounds, since 8th grade (15 years). In 8th grade I wore a size 7/8. Today I wear a size 0/2.

I would also like to point out that this size ignorance is what allows the proud but embarrassing proclamation that Marylin Monroe was a size 8. Did you ever try to fit into a 1950s vintage size 8? It's more like a size 00 today. Sizing is just screwed up altogether, and I think there is no point discussing numbers which are not only practically arbitrary, but change in order to make us consume more.

I read somewhere several years ago - I think it was in Camryn Manheim's book - that the Lane Bryant catalog attempted a study of sorts involving different-size models. They featured clothing items on one page using plus-size (12ish) models, and then put the same items on smaller models a few pages later. Inevitably, women ordered the items from the small-model pages, even though the exact same clothing items were shown on "plus"-size models elsewhere in the same catalog. Does this mean that women, even plus-sized women, are attracted to images of smaller, even unrealistic, models? Are we simply conditioned to do so, or is it something deeper? Either way, I thought it was interesting.

You know, Madison Ave is in the business of making money. If we all universally decided not to support images of emaciated, pre-pubescent women, they'd follow suit, eventually.

I've weighed the same, give or take 5 pounds, since 8th grade (15 years). In 8th grade I wore a size 7/8. Today I wear a size 0/2.

I used to be a size 4, and now i am the proud owner of a banana republic skirt that's size 0 that fits perfectly, and a size 2 suitskirt that seems to be too big. Now, i know i'm not a real 0, or 2, so WTF?

Insights?

Yes the women looked a little off, until I clicked on the other fashion sections, which have professional models, and they didn't look any better - honestly they look frightening.

if you have an ugly product, a good way to present it during fashion week is by using standard models. ugly product plus non-standard models means people don't have a basis for analysing the clothes. the baseline helps, rather than hurts analysis. now, if the suits were gorgeous and looked awesome on the models, then that would be a different story, but they don't. kudos to the designer for using realistic models, but this is not a nice collection.

"Also, I must be honest, to me, the women had slightly misshapen bodies, mildly bloated stomachs, dimpled flesh, essentially, irregular bodies. They did, however, have pretty faces and they would not have looked out of place at the beach.

-- poeslygeia"

If those women are misshapen, bloated, and dimpled, then I'm a size 0.

(I'm not, I'm a gigantic, oafsome size 8. In pants. But a 6 in dresses. And really it depends on the store and the elasticity of the jeans in question.)

You guys are right - what IS up with sizes? These days I can go to The Gap and try on three different pairs of pants and I need a different size for each. And if you find sizing confusing, don't even bother walking into Chico's.