La Image inc wrote:
Why do Fashion industry wants skinny models?

Clients make the call, not the agencies.
As to why- well, that's the flavor du jour. Keep in mind that fashion models
are not about reality. It's about fantasy, the out of reach, the unobtainable.

La Image inc wrote:
In contrast male models doesn't have any weight restriction, as long as they are not obese,  but they all have to be 6 foot tall for men.

Who is your source of this information?

Zoolander 3???     

I would give you an extensive reason why... but it's Saturday night... I just got home... I am filled to the brim with vodka... and after giving the same answer to that question for over  decade on MM, I am not in a rush... please forgive me!

However, too heavy and too muscular male models can't be mer-men... only Poseidon after a year of US based diet!

Just see what the American diet did to Michelangelo's David after a three months loaner to an American museum... those muthafuckas!

La Image inc wrote:
In the last 10 years, female models seems to be getting more & more skinny.  In contrast male models doesn't have any weight restriction, as long as they are not obese,  but they all have to be 6 foot tall for men.

Is it the agencies who create it  or the client who make the clothes wanted it?

I'm going to ignore male modeling for a moment, except to say if we are discussing male fashion models they are all slender and incredibly fit.

Udor's taking a break right now, so with the understanding that new people join the forums every day I will take a moment to try to explain why fashion models (more correctly, editorial fashion models) tend to be tall (5'9-6') and slender. A lot of couture fashion runs to long gowns, and these do look better on tall, slender models.

But there is a structural problem that leads to fashion models being tall and slender. First, let's understand what a "fashion model" is using industry terms. A fashion model is not some one who wears clothes and is photographed, a fashion model as defined by the industry is a a model who walks the spring and fall fashion shows, who appears in the editorial stories in the fashion magazines, and are featured by the fashion designers in their advertising campaigns. Or as least they look like these models and are trying through their agencies to get themselves placed in those jobs.

Now the structural problem as it has to do with model sizes. Each Spring and Fall season begins with the major fashion shows in New York, Paris, Milan, London, etc. At these shows the designers present their ideas for the following season. Note that the Spring fashion shows feature fall and winter designs, and the Fall shows feature spring and summer fashions. Why are they six months ahead of the store sales? Because the designers are presenting their ideas, and only after the shows and orders start to come in, do the designers know which clothes in their new lines need to go into production, need to be advertised, and finally delivered to the stores! That all of this happens in six months is actually pretty impressive.

We can all accept that those runway models in the shows are going to be tall and slender. This is necessitated by the designers who are only producing one sample dress from their design sketches (typically a designer will have 150+ sketches  which gets edited down to 50 or 60 actually produced dresses). Now this is where the problem begins, it only makes sense (if you are only going to make one dress, gown, whatever), that they all be the same size and every model you interview for those shows has to fit that size (typically a size 2, 32-34 bust, 23-24 waist, 32-34 hips).

And, it's not uncommon for the designers to pick models from the shows for their look books and advertising campaigns. Further, if we are going to shoot these fashions for the magazines (remembering that those photo shoots are scheduled and done 3-5 months ahead of publication) we only have those sample clothes available. Designers will usually select a major department store to place their sample clothes where they can be pulled by stylists for magazines or photographers with a pull letter.

So you can see how the egg does come before the chicken. The designers produce one sample gown, those samples go to the sample racks in select stores in New York, Chicago, Miami and LA for magazine and advertising photography, and the models (regardless of what they are doing) must fit those sample sizes.

Now, none of this applies to things like sale inserts in your local paper, or even some editorial stories done for local magazines in markets not named New York, Miami, or Los Angeles. Here you can go to the store and pick what ever sizes you need from the store racks. But the industry does not consider this as fashion, it is commercial photography. The difference between commercial and fashion models and work they do is a subject for a different day.

John
--
John L. Fisher
700 Euclid Avenue, Suite 110
Miami Beach, Florida 33139
(305) 534-9322
http://www.johnfisher.com
http://www.calendargirlphoto.com

La Image inc wrote:
In the last 10 years, female models seems to be getting more & more skinny.  In contrast male models doesn't have any weight restriction, as long as they are not obese,  but they all have to be 6 foot tall for men.

Is it the agencies who create it  or the client who make the clothes wanted it?

In the last 10 years?  Perhaps you haven't been around for more than 10 years.  The industry has demanded very thin models for fashion since the 60's and there has always been competition.

Men certainly do need to be very thin in fashion modeling to be competitive.  Just like the women. 

And it is the clients who want the thinnest hangers for their clothing to be seen on the runway.  The agencies just know this and staff appropriately. 

Luckily, there is more to the modeling industry than just fashion and a wider variety of body type can be successful.

udor wrote:

Just see what the American diet did to Michelangelo's David after a three months loaner to an American museum... those muthafuckas!

Haha, I've heard the American diet called S.A.D. - (standard American diet).
-Don

La Image inc wrote:
In the last 10 years, female models seems to be getting more & more skinny.  ...

Is it the agencies who create it  or the client who make the clothes wanted it?

Being an old fart, I'd say that "trend" is 'way older than 10 years.  I'd say it is at least 50 years old, and maybe older.

I don't know, but if I were to provide a theory, I'd say that skinny women appear to be younger than fit or muscular or "thick" women, that fashion is much about attractiveness and desire, and that we tend to be attracted to the young.  Mature women can be so complicated! 

Teila K Day Photography wrote:
It's a trickle up affect of a simple reality that in Western Culture at least, thin sells more product most of the time.  There's no lines to read between here.  I didn't say or allude to anything beyond what I said in the first sentence.  Period.   When all else is equal, thin moves more product as opposed to larger women, most of the time.

No... NO... NO... just friggin' NOOOOOO!!!

Please do your homework, instead of repeating popular, mainstream theories of people who write and blog or sensationalize without a clue about the process of a garment from initial sketch to sample, to fashion-show introduction to the public and then the move to mass production of the garment and it's final destination, the rack of your local clothing store.

I am so sick and tired (sorry, I have little patience right now and it's not personal!!!) of so called fashion photographers who didn't do the slightest research into the industry they are "working in" and repeating mainstream media's purposeful misrepresentation of the fashion images they see and show to the public.

If you are calling yourself a fashion photographer, you should have a rudimentary knowledge of the process of garment creation and industry practices before giving long winded opinions that do not educate.

Please take a look at John Fisher's explanation above for starters.

Toodles for now!

udor

udor wrote:
No... NO... NO... just friggin' NOOOOOO!!!

Please do your homework, instead of repeating popular, mainstream theories of people who write and blog or sensationalize without a clue about the process of a garment from initial sketch to sample, to fashion-show introduction to the public and then the move to mass production of the garment and it's final destination, the rack of your local clothing store.

I am so sick and tired (sorry, I have little patience right now and it's not personal!!!) of so called fashion photographers who didn't do the slightest research into the industry they are "working in" and repeating mainstream media's purposeful misrepresentation of the fashion images they see and show to the public.

If you are calling yourself a fashion photographer, you should have a rudimentary knowledge of the process of garment creation and industry practices before giving long winded opinions that do not educate.

Please take a look at John Fisher's explanation above for starters.

Toodles for now!

udor

I've been shooting to eat for over a decade and providing digital content since the 90's.  Don't tell me about "research".   I don't know what anyone else is saying about the subject because I'm speaking from my experience actually working.  High Fashion is but a sliver of the photographic industry.  What isn't a sliver is the realities of common business.  Stop it with all the rack to the clothing store nonsense.  Had you had a hand in running a business selling garments, you'd probably understand that in most demographics in the U.S.,  you don't field an ad with larger models if you want to sell product.  You can carry x amount of larger sizes (which cost more to keep in inventory) but you field slimmer models for the ad.  Larger sizes of the same design usually are perceived as not looking as good as the smaller sizes.  There isn't a woman in here that doesn't know what I'm talking about.  The same goes for salon shoes; you don't typically see a size 10 on the display as opposed to a pert size 7, etc..  Larger HH sizes look different just like larger dress sizes look different when compared to their smaller/thinner counterparts.  YMMV but that's my experience in actually forking out $$,$$$ money for Sherry Hill, Jovani, et al inventory.   Slim sells.  If size 12 sells product in your business then rock on!  I'm happy for you.

I'm not a fashion photographer (poor ROI / time, you can do better with less work working in a 9-5 clinic, no weekends or call as a physician assistant with more employment options!).   You sound like a college touting how much one can make in one of the many worthless "fluff" majors of study, when the reality is that industry isn't interested and those that do get hired can only find part time work, no benefits, and little chance for upward or lateral mobility.  I can school you on that too.  My point is that you're seemingly oblivious to the realities of business while tunnel-visioned on the "fashion" end of things?  You're looking at the wrong end of the business, I'm talking about the money end, where people are actually buying product and what most clients want to see from models fielded to promote their product.

Who's talking about the media?  I'm talking from the standpoint of what businesses want, will pay for, demand, and what translates to more conversions.  What I said is irrefutable.  Slim, in general, sells more. Period.

Now you can sit, stew, and pretend that phenotype doesn't matter to sales, but most people who's pay depends on it knows that *generally speaking* sales increase when you field a slender model and sales droop and you can get stereotyped a 'big girl store' when you carry a large array of large sizes and run ads depicting the same.  That's just business reality.  You can choose to keep your head in the dirt, but that doesn't change fact.

udor wrote:

Who is your source of this information?

Zoolander 3???     

I would give you an extensive reason why... but it's Saturday night... I just got home... I am filled to the brim with vodka... and after giving the same answer to that question for over  decade on MM, I am not in a rush... please forgive me!

However, too heavy and too muscular male models can't be mer-men... only Poseidon after a year of US based diet!

Just see what the American diet did to Michelangelo's David after a three months loaner to an American museum... those muthafuckas!

Ha ha ha!! Those m'fers!!!
Jen

Looknsee Photography wrote:
Mature women can be so complicated! 

Awe, maybe we are more complicated but, as a mature woman I am very lucky to know some understading male friends!!

Jen

Teila K Day Photography wrote:
I've been shooting to eat for over a decade and providing digital content since the 90's.  Don't tell me about "research".   I don't know what anyone else is saying about the subject because I'm speaking from my experience actually working.  High Fashion is but a sliver of the photographic industry.  What isn't a sliver is the realities of common business.  Stop it with all the rack to the clothing store nonsense.  Had you had a hand in running a business selling garments, you'd probably understand that in most demographics in the U.S.,  you don't field an ad with larger models if you want to sell product.

My point is that you're seemingly oblivious to the realities of business while tunnel-visioned on the "fashion" end of things?  You're looking at the wrong end of the business, I'm talking about the money end, where people are actually buying product and what most clients want to see from models fielded to promote their product.

Now you can sit, stew, and pretend that phenotype doesn't matter to sales, but most people who's pay depends on it knows that *generally speaking* sales increase when you field a slender model and sales droop and you can get stereotyped a 'big girl store' when you carry a large array of large sizes and run ads depicting the same.  That's just business reality.  You can choose to keep your head in the dirt, but that doesn't change fact.

I am not addressing every little point in your response, however, you've mentioned that you don't care what other people say, because you talk about your own experience working in the fashion industry for 10 years (you have conflicting data about your statement, tho!)...

Here's my experience: I do work full time in this industry for the past 18 years (1998). I am involved in runway production, shot over 2,400 fashion shows, have been part of hundreds of fashion show productions, including NYFW and, as a matter of fact, I have been involved with emerging as well as established designers even in little tasks such as fabric selections.

In addition, I am involved with an organization that supports emerging designers, providing facilities and training, while having the goal to bring manufacturing back to NYC and receiving federal, New York State and NYC grants for it: www.manufactureny.org

Knowing about the process of establishing the first prototypes of a garment, the samples, is paramount to understanding why the models at the industry-only event NYFW have all a certain size and height, including requirements for male models. Using commercial models later on, after the proto-type samples being altered manufactured for the upcoming season is where your part is coming in. But you just can not ignore the first steps, as if it is some non-essential part, that can be simply ignored, as you do, and start at the catalog level and mass-media marketing!

Now, I am also directly involved in marketing and on the fashion business side as well... for many, many years now..., enough that I can say that I do have a pretty good idea about a lot of aspects of the fashion industry, on many levels. I don't claim that I know everything about the industry, but I also know a few people I can go to, who are literally encyclopedias for the fashion industry and history of fashion. I have full access to those people, with the touch of the speed dial on my phone, if I need to know or verify something.

I understand your argument and necessity in working in a different field, because of insufficient money in fashion for you in your market. However,, consider that I am living and working in the primary market for the Americas, although money could always be better, "despite" working in fashion photography, I still can afford to live in a rather pricey area, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, next to Sotheby's (half a block!) and 12 minutes walk to Central Park.

udor wrote:

I am not addressing every little point in your response, however, you've mentioned that you don't care what other people say, because you talk about your own experience working in the fashion industry for 10 years (you have conflicting data about your statement, tho!)...

Here's my experience: I do work full time in this industry for the past 18 years (1998). I am involved in runway production, shot over 2,400 fashion shows, have been part of hundreds of fashion show productions, including NYFW and, as a matter of fact, I have been involved with emerging as well as established designers even in little tasks such as fabric selections.

In addition, I am involved with an organization that supports emerging designers, providing facilities and training, while having the goal to bring manufacturing back to NYC and receiving federal, New York State and NYC grants for it: www.manufactureny.org

Knowing about the process of establishing the first prototypes of a garment, the samples, is paramount to understanding why the models at the industry-only event NYFW have all a certain size and height, including requirements for male models. Using commercial models later on, after the proto-type samples being altered manufactured for the upcoming season is where your part is coming in. But you just can not ignore the first steps, as if it is some non-essential part, that can be simply ignored, as you do, and start at the catalog level and mass-media marketing!

Now, I am also directly involved in marketing and on the fashion business side as well... for many, many years now..., enough that I can say that I do have a pretty good idea about a lot of aspects of the fashion industry, on many levels. I don't claim that I know everything about the industry, but I also know a few people I can go to, who are literally encyclopedias for the fashion industry and history of fashion. I have full access to those people, with the touch of the speed dial on my phone, if I need to know or verify something.

I understand your argument and necessity in working in a different field, because of insufficient money in fashion for you in your market. However,, consider that I am living and working in the primary market for the Americas, although money could always be better, "despite" working in fashion photography, I still can afford to live in a rather pricey area, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, next to Sotheby's (half a block!) and 12 minutes walk to Central Park.

First, please pay attention to context so not to be fallacious. I didn't say I didn't care what others think as a point-blank statement, I said that I didn't care what others think in-the-context-of me responding to your presupposition that I parroted 2nd hand information.  I relate what I've experienced and lived; not heard.  You keep referring to the fashion industry which is mostly reactionary to the public's sentiment and most importantly, the public's monetary response.  Here's what it means.  The fashion industry can field only 5'2, 150lb models and that will not change what the public's general perception of what the buying public find most attractive. Again, I'm speaking for the developed western hemisphere.   You and I both know that a size 16 design doesn't usually look as enticing per public perception as a size 2-4 of the same design.  You and I know (and practically every woman on the planet that buys shoes and outfits) that a size 6, 5"+ high heel doesn't look the same as a size 10 of the same design; such are truths that are simply irrefutable.   Relatively few photographers on the planet have photographed a woman who wanted their entire body to be made "larger" in post.  Stores field size 8 down because that's what sells most.  Most women are reluctant to run out and shop for a Mrs. Doubtfire looking size 14, while 3 women next to her are pulling smaller sizes from the rack offered in funky colours and pert designs.

While you and I sit on different ends of a photographic spectrum, we're operating within a sphere where the (business) end goal is predicated on money as opposed to making art.  I will say it again, if 5'2, 150lb models sold significantly more product than their taller/slimmer counterparts, you would see considerably meatier models on the runway, in print/online ads, stock photography, and nearly every other facet of photography where money is the chief concern.. to include VS.

You've been fortunate.  I've been fortunate.  The reality is that most photographers aren't homeowners in desirable areas of NYC or the SFO Bay Area + beach home/business in FL.

Your experiences, while I find them interesting they have absolutely no relevant bearing on the simple truth that the slender phenotype as opposed to larger phenotypes continue to be the preeminent preference when it comes to fielding a model to sell product or an idea.  Again, that fact, no matter how unpopular it may be, is irrefutable fact.  Your continued reference to "fashion" (in context of higher fashion/runway, etc.)  is a reference to an industry that makes up only a sliver of, and is not representative of the greater market fielding models in order to entice sales and conversions, whether it be a portrait photographer displaying printed work at a mall, photographer shooting ad work for a large hospital system, lifestyle/commercial/catalog work etc...

Virtually every photographer and every women who's gone shopping in the last 20 years knows that ads mostly field slimmer sizes and slimmer sizes give a women the most options when it comes to choice designs at the store level.  How many successful wedding photographer have portfolios sporting phenotypes representative of the average women compared to those that favor slimmer sizes in their ports?  Even a blanket google search for "wedding photography" will always pull up mostly slimmer models as opposed to those representing the most typical size getting married in the U.S..  Surprised?  No.  Not surprised.  None of us are, because we (including yourself) already know that.

Wedding?
https://www.google.com/search?q=wedding … p;bih=1320

Catalog?

https://www.google.com/search?q=portrai … 5m2FFVM%3A

Boudoir?

https://www.google.com/search?q=portrai … hotography

Commercial?

https://www.google.com/search?q=commerc … oQ_AUIBigB

... but all of that is what's going on in the real world of business and photography where the rubber actually meets the road.

I'll just respectfully agree to disagree w/you while wishing you the best that photography and business can bring! 

I rest.

Teila K Day Photography wrote:
Your continued reference to "fashion" (in context of higher fashion/runway, etc.)  is a reference to an industry that makes up only a sliver of, and is not representative of the greater market fielding models in order to entice sales and conversions, whether it be a portrait photographer displaying printed work at a mall, photographer shooting ad work for a large hospital system, lifestyle/commercial/catalog work etc...

Virtually every photographer and every women who's gone shopping in the last 20 years knows that ads mostly field slimmer sizes and slimmer sizes give a women the most options when it comes to choice designs at the store level.

This whole tit-for-tat could have been avoided if you had simply read the title of the thread. He has been referencing "fashion" because that is what the original question was about. You are the one that keeps trying to hijack it and turn it into a discussion on advertising and marketing. You are both correct, but talking about different segments.

Teila K Day Photography wrote:
First, please pay attention to context so not to be fallacious.

You keep referring to the fashion industry which is mostly reactionary to the public's sentiment and most importantly, the public's monetary response.

See below, Eye of the World explained it to you:

Eye of the World wrote:
This whole tit-for-tat could have been avoided if you had simply read the title of the thread. He has been referencing "fashion" because that is what the original question was about. You are the one that keeps trying to hijack it and turn it into a discussion on advertising and marketing. You are both correct, but talking about different segments.

In a different context, I would agree with you, HOWEVER this thread is specifically about the fashion industry... not wedding, boudoir or whatever photography... it's about the fashion industry!.

Lastly, don't be so presumptuous about what other photography I am doing and being involved in.

You are making an incorrect statement about the fashion industry, not realizing it is about the fashion industry and I am correcting you on it... which doesn't mean I am clueless about other segments of industries that require photographic services!

Eye of the World wrote:
This whole tit-for-tat could have been avoided if you had simply read the title of the thread. He has been referencing "fashion" because that is what the original question was about. You are the one that keeps trying to hijack it and turn it into a discussion on advertising and marketing. You are both correct, but talking about different segments.

The question was accurately addressed in the first sentence of my first post in this thread.  "It's a trickle up affect of a simple reality that in Western Culture at least, thin sells more product most of the time."   Which again is irrefutable.  What isn't relevant is how the fashion industry goes about doing what it does to reap the benefit of that monetary reality.  I also related that the fashion industry is a mostly reactionary industry.   "Advertising and Marketing" *is* what practically makes up the fashion industry and "advertising and marketing" is predicated on what people b-u-y or that which entices people to buy another product but that's an entirely different thread.

The answer to the OP's question has little (if anything) to do with the fashion industry and everything to do with what sells best, easiest, and for the most money and offers the best ROI to stores and manufacturers.  The straight answer to the question is almost purely about business and little about "fashion".  The reason the fashion industry fields thinner models is the same as why many firms hire a young thin receptionist, why casinos and many eateries hire thinner waitstaff, why a certain phenotype is the mainstay in porn, erotica, beauty, lingerie, show car modeling and pretty much any other facet of putting the female form on display.

Want to see it change?  Let ads featuring thin phenotypes cause sales to drop 20% and larger phenotypes cause sales to rise significantly... you'll hardly see a thin girl being fielded for agency modeling because hardly any business will want or (most importantly) pay for that phenotype... and agencies, like most of us, like a cash cow (no pun).

Best in photography and modeling to all of you!

La Image inc wrote:
In the last 10 years, female models seems to be getting more & more skinny.  In contrast male models doesn't have any weight restriction, as long as they are not obese,  but they all have to be 6 foot tall for men.

Is it the agencies who create it  or the client who make the clothes wanted it?

Hi La Image!

John Fisher has already given a comprehensive answer that should suffice, but here are some supplemental thoughts that may shed additional light on your question, or at least give the same explanation in a different way.

We have to start with the economics of creating a garment or a suit.

Designers all over the world are using pretty much the same approach. A sketch of the dress is being created and when the sketch is being approved as a design the pattern makers translating the sketch into patterns that will be sewn together and fitted on a device that is called a mannequin, which is a female torso that has specific measurements. Expensive ones can be slightly adjusted for specific demands, e.g. ball gowns and wedding dresses often require a bigger bust, which is also the reason many wedding dresses on the runway are being worn by models with a bigger chest.

When I am talking about fashion shows, I am not talking about shows in the local night club, but about actual industry events with buyers and fashion editors that are "judging" the new collection for the next season and making notes on their sheets, called run-of-the-show, which dresses they want to see in the days after the show.

The people in the first row are usually the most important people to the designer. The papers that they are holding are the "run of the show" sheets, with the correct order of the models, their names and the description of the dress. They a re making notes for themselves about specific garments they want to see in the following days in the showroom.

Ralph Rucci, Fall/Winter 2013 Collection, at New York Fashion Week



Anyway, back to the dress making process.

The cut pieces are being laid on the mannequin to see that they fit and then being sewn together and fitted to the measurements of the mannequin, which creates the unique sample of that garment and the fabrics often being used can be very expensive for those prototypes.




It could mean financial suicide (if on a budget) or wasteful (if designer has deep pockets) if the designer would be using different size mannequins and creating different size dresses for the shows, hence it's being kept uniform and the models are being selected that have those mannequin sizes, because they have to be interchangeable on the models, e.g. if something happens to a model, any other model in the line-up has to be able to put on the dress with a few quick on the go adjustments.

That's why sample sizes and "agency standard" measurements exist.

Just imagine if the designer spends 10's to 100's of thousands of Dollars to produce a fashion show and a model falls ill or whatever and nobody can put it on, because it was created just for her specific body. Marc Jacobs, btw., spends sometimes 1 to 2 Million Dollars for his fashion shows at NY Fashion Week.

Also, that sample size standard emerged because it keeps the balance between the amount of fabric (costs) used and visual impact to the audience.

Now, of course, non industry shows, at very local markets or by really small emerging designers, can be much more flexible... but most of those shows are more for the entertainment value and showing the garments to local people, because they usually don't have buyers from Macy's, JC Penny or Bloomingdale's sitting at the bar while the models "ripping the runway". Btw., I have shot enough of those little shows in my career as well...

The only time they create an individual piece, completely out of the norm is for a celebrity that could walk for the designer. Many actresses are just over 5" and may be chubby, but they will show up for the event, no matter what, but if something happens to that celebrity, that dress won't show on the runway.

Finally, after the companies select and order the garments for their department stores, those companies then hire commercial models that often look more like "real people" and those end up in the catalogues, on their websites, etc. This is when many of us photographers create lookbooks for the designer.

All the issues about marketing, behavioral psychology, etc., that Teila is talking about, comes after the process of the dress creation and fashion shows, basically... all follows the mannequin...

So, I hope this answers your question, but I will review and edit this post, in case I see something that I forgot or I wasn't clear about.

Best!

udor

La Image inc wrote:
In the last 10 years, female models seems to be getting more & more skinny.  In contrast male models doesn't have any weight restriction, as long as they are not obese,  but they all have to be 6 foot tall for men.

Is it the agencies who create it  or the client who make the clothes wanted it?

Neither one. It is the market, always the market.

Eye of the World wrote:

This whole tit-for-tat could have been avoided if you had simply read the title of the thread. He has been referencing "fashion" because that is what the original question was about. You are the one that keeps trying to hijack it and turn it into a discussion on advertising and marketing. You are both correct, but talking about different segments.

QFT.

You beat me to it.

SingularityStudios wrote:
But isn't the Fashion industry's preference for women still predicated on body types that "really sells"?

And what does sell (yes, I speak exclusively about the the Fashion industry) are women body-types that are always on the slim side.

And this preference does dictate the body-type/fit that the designers base their runway clothes on.

I don't see why the two popular posters in this thread have to be wrong. They are both right. We're just practically splitting hairs.

I have to comment quicker.

And here i thought it was because it cost less in material to make clothes for skinny models.

udor wrote:
Since I have been talking about the costs of a fashion show at NYFW, and the required logistics of having rather uniform sized models to present the designer's garments, I found this, one of several articles on this topic to be interesting information about what is going on in such shows:

A New York Fashion Week Show Costs $460,000 On Average, Plus 9 Other Things You Didn't Know About NYFW

cool link. Thanks, Udor.

udor wrote:
Since I have been talking about the costs of a fashion show at NYFW, and the required logistics of having rather uniform sized models to present the designer's garments, I found this, one of several articles on this topic to be interesting information about what is going on in such shows:

A New York Fashion Week Show Costs $460,000 On Average, Plus 9 Other Things You Didn't Know About NYFW

Magda Kulpinska wrote:
Ok, want a true story? Here you go:

I've been doing fittings for a certain designer for several years now. I wasn't available last month and he took another girl. As we looked at the pictures we noticed she had bigger breasts than me.


That particular circumstance made one garment look... well, not so nice. The designer said: I prefer the way it looks on you. Why? Because my breasts are smaller. It looked better and we had a picture to prove it.


So. Very tangible proof. #thatslife

Completely true and confirmed, Magda!!!

If the chesty model would be casting for swimsuit or gowns, she'd be great, but for "regular" fashion modeling... well, it had been said that bigger boobs will detract from the garment!

Teila K Day Photography wrote:
Had you had a hand in running a business selling garments, you'd probably understand that in most demographics in the U.S.,  you don't field an ad with larger models if you want to sell product.  You can carry x amount of larger sizes (which cost more to keep in inventory) but you field slimmer models for the ad.  Larger sizes of the same design usually are perceived as not looking as good as the smaller sizes.

You are misunderstanding two fundamental concepts as they  specifically pertain to the fashion industry: marketing vs. merchandising.

I'm not going to spend my time writing a college thesis length critique of all of your posts in this thread because the only person it would benefit would be you. You are patently wrong about the process of both marketing and merchandising fashion/apparel in this country. You sited erroneous and irrelevant statements and theories to support your opinion.

You would do well to back up three steps from this thread and research fashion merchandising and how it works both in parallel and independent from fashion marketing. However I don't expect you to actually do that given how you rudely dismiss some other grounded information in this thread.

La Image inc wrote:
In the last 10 years, female models seems to be getting more & more skinny.  In contrast male models doesn't have any weight restriction, as long as they are not obese,  but they all have to be 6 foot tall for men.

Is it the agencies who create it  or the client who make the clothes wanted it?

I don't actually agree with you.

In the last 10 years there has been a push-back from the ultra-thin 'gamine' look that was actually popular in 2006. What I have actually seen in the specific time you are referring to has been:
a) the foundation of health/fit agencies and divisions
b) fewer rail-thin, gaunt, herion-chic models on boards
c) fewer fashion models on the cover of fashion magazines
d) athletic fashion being the fastest growing section of the industry
e) models arms that actually have some muscle on them instead of bones sticking out

While I'm am not an apologist for the fashion industry, I do think that over the past 10 years, the period you refer to, there has be a small change for the better. It certainly hasn't gotten significantly worse than in 2006. There has been a significant shift in body shape of the top level models every decade stretching back all of the way to the 50s. It is hard to pin-point a change when we are yet still in the middle of a cycle, but it appears the apex of the ultra thin was in the first decade of the 21st Century. The second decade, i.e. now, has see some changes if you look across all of fashion, not just runway.

Dan Howell wrote:
You would do well to back up three steps from this thread and research fashion merchandising and how it works both in parallel and independent from fashion marketing.

That was my first response to her as well.

However, speaking more generalized, I think that any photographer that works in the fashion industry, or uses garments in their work, should have some knowledge of the processes we have described..., at least out of professional pride into their work.

I don't mean fashion photographers should take courses on design or merchandising at FIT, but at least reading up on it, or researching YouTube videos on that matter.

I know people who can tell you the season and year a designer introduced a specific garment at what show, just by looking at it, that would be overkill for us photographers, but I think we should have a basic knowledge, which all too often, especially on MM, is being replaced with misinformation that people give and also receive.

Btw., tomorrow, it'll be my 5th time as a guest on the American Fashion Podcast. One of the hosts is exactly that type of expert I was referring above... amazing knowledge!

udor wrote:
...
Btw., tomorrow, it'll be my 5th time as a guest on the American Fashion Podcast. One of the hosts is exactly that type of expert I was referring above... amazing knowledge!

Great!!

Break a leg, ( I mean, you know...) and post a link when you can.

Nice!
Jen