Brit designer says fashion industry has forced unrealistic image on women

LONDON - A leading British designer has slammed the fashion industry’s continued obsession with skinny models, accusing it of being both ageist and sexist in its attitudes to women.

Giles Deacon, the creative director of Emanuel Ungaro, the Parisian fashion house, said women were being asked to aspire to a completely unrealistic ideal of beauty.

“I’ve seen it in certain studios I’ve worked in and I’ve never liked it as a way of working or being with people,” the Telegraph quoted Deacon as saying.

“At a certain period in time, the fashion industry was portraying this image of a totally unrealistic woman, women who are not allowed to be themselves. It’s just all a bit wrong,” he said.

He pins the blame for this on the cowardice of many of his fellow designers.

“I think [designers] were probably scared, if truth be out, that if they put someone who wasn’t ‘right’ on the runway or in an ad campaign, that it would be a failure, that women wouldn’t want it. Which clearly isn’t the case,” he said. (ANI)