is that high fashion isn't market driven, and that each other successive tier of design takes their cues from the one above it.

Haute couture is copied by demi-couture, demi-couture is copied by ready-to-wear, ready-to-wear is copied by fine boutiques, who are copied by cutting edge discount stores, department stores, and the rest of us unlucky kids. By the time any middle class dollars enter the picture, the taste-makers are so distant from consumers that any boycott would have no effect.

The real tragedy of using skinny models isn't that some adolescent girls will see them as "normal." (really, I think that an anorexic american teen will be more inspired by the Nichole Richie and Lindsay Lohan look than whoever is stumbling down the runway for Marc Jacobs) It's that by using very thin models, designers are creating fashions without any thought to what looks good on average women; and, as everyone copies the designers, the average woman is left looking frumpy and confused. (Example: Skinny Jeans. Example: The return of leggings. Example: Suits with shorts)

Off topic: Why is it that any big fat successful male lawyer can get an Armani suit, but a big fat successful female lawyer is still shopping at Lane Bryant? Men just have to be rich to dress well; women have to be rich and thin.

It's that by using very thin models, designers are creating fashions without any thought to what looks good on average women; and, as everyone copies the designers, the average woman is left looking frumpy and confused. (Example: Skinny Jeans. Example: The return of leggings. Example: Suits with shorts)

Well, actually, Gap skinny jeans miraculously come in up to size 16, excuse me, 20.

http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=13650&pid=431865

However, designers like Armani produce women's clothes up to size 10. I've never seen a designer that doesn't make up to size 8.

Maybe, this can motivate women to slim down to a reasonable size 10. Size 12 is probably overweight, which is unhealthy.

Off topic: Why is it that any big fat successful male lawyer can get an Armani suit, but a big fat successful female lawyer is still shopping at Lane Bryant? Men just have to be rich to dress well; women have to be rich and thin.

this is sort of true. there is much less fine business clothing for women than for men. If you are a big fat successful female lawyer, you can get custom tailored suits for less than an Armani suit, for sure.

I think the problem of eating disorders is often minimized, partly because people see it as an adoloscent stage, partly because it's related to appearance, and partly because people don't take the welfare of girls very seriously.

So it is important to note that eating disorders have among the highest morbidity of any mental illness. I believe for anorexia it's estimated that 30% of sufferers eventually die of starvation, related organ failure or some other consequence of starvation.

Of course it's a no-brainer that the industry should be regulated. They are like idiot tyrants who are responsible for disease and death. Since they won't act responsibly, they must be forced to.

As for 10 or 12 being the limit before women become over weight, my BMI is in the normal range, I am 5'9" and I wear a 14, sometimes a 16. So there.

But I had borderline anorexia when I was a teen and I think it is absolutely true that the 'skinny propaganda' coming from the fashion industry encourages these disorders.

Coming at this from another angle, I think the point of skinny models is to make the clothes look good. The models in person are too lanky and emaciated, but as 'hangers' they work: less body, more drape, more swing, more expressive scope for fashion.

If models aren't allowed to be so skinny, the resulting clothers might work better on real bodies than they currently do.

in the letters section, however:

Whether or not the fashions, filtered down to the gap price level are available to average sized women...they aren't made to flatter them. Skinny jeans are profoundly non-flattering on nearly all women. Not just plus-size women, but nearly all women.

And your idea about withholding flattering styles as a punitive measure is absurd. It's even more absurd when you consider that only overweight women would be affected as you've agreed that men's clothing is available in all sizes; are you advocating greater penalties for women? If so, then you're not concerned about their health, guy, as men's health is also greatly harmed by obesity. You're concerned about your own aesthetic experience of the world, which is compromised by the broadening American waistline. But that's ok. I'm shallow, too. I just don't propose policies based on it

On the availability of high-end clothing for women- yes, you may have seen a size ten in some expensive shop. You may think that a size ten is a generous size. With vanity sizing, it can be. But the more expensive the store, the smaller the size. Why should a woman have to be on the low end of healthy to consume designer fashion?

Fashion designers take the easy way out by cutting for a size 0. Whatever aesthetic justifications they claim; it's simply easier to drape when there is no shape interfering with your line. Intellectual laziness; not concern for the American obesity epidemic.

Speaking a woman with a BMI of 17.2, regulating models based on BMI is absurd.

When I play with the BMI charts, I have found this: if I subtract 1/2 inch from my height (should I round up, or down?), and add 5 pounds to my weight (I easily fluctuate that much in a week) I have a "healthy" BMI of 18.7 This leads me to believe that BMI is almost meaningless for petite women near the borderline. And yes, I am very healthy, I'm just small. And a larger-boned woman with a higher BMI could easily have a life-threatening eating disorder. Much more effective for regulating models would a doctor's certificate certifying good health.

And for those of you who think that designers' make clothes for size 0, boy are you wrong. I can barely find a size 0 in a department store, and if it actually looks good on me, I just about jump for joy. To be specific, designers design for tall thin women who are photographed from below (the typical camera angle in a fashion show). The clothes don't look any better on me than they do on you, in fact they often make me look like a truncated cartoon character. So how to combat this? There are plently of "lower class" designers who design for real people- buy their clothes instead. They're usually cheaper anyway. Or, if you have the cash, get your clothes tailored.

Incidentally, I don't think that "skinny black pants" look good on anyone, even the billdboard models. Who would deliberately want to look like a chicken?