I read this article on South Africa’s joining the World on a Global Backlash Against Size Zero and I could not help but be irritated as the unidentified writer explains how Audi Johanesburg Fashion Week and its designers are on a campaign against size “zero.” It states that skinny models are being shunned for African women with more “prominent bottom” this “month.” SA joining the ban on size zero, give me a break! The real deal is the ridiculousess, whether with the Western or African Fashion Industries, of using teenagers to market fashion products to grown women. This is the core issue. Oversexualizing teenagers and then having women fantasizing and desiring to have teenage bodies, at all cost, is really troubling. Also, creating the resulting effect where teenage models when they evolve into women, want, at all cost, to remain in a teenager’s body is just plain sad. While using teenagers to market to grown women has been a marketing tool that has sold trillions of fashion products and services, it has also come at a huge cost [anorexia, bullemia and so forth] to society at large.
South Africa doing a so called ban on “size zero” campaign. Is the average model in South Africa a size zero? Skinny, beautiful, often tall young African girls have been subjected to psychological abuse for decades in Africa and they, as much as the “prominent bottom[e]d” African woman ought to be protected. Our young skinny women have been the laughing beauty joke of Africa for a long time. Now they are gaining headways, through the fashion industry, but South Africa, from this article and past observations and research, uses them in an exploitative manner, when the West thinks they are hot; and discards them when the West thinks they are not. The woman quoted in the article says there is a curent stigma that a skinny person has AIDS. Wow!
When will this foolishness stop? If the skinny African Model is not explaining to the Western Fashion Industry some tragic story of war and poverty, then she is explaining to Africa that she is eating and does not have “AIDS”? You have got to be kidding me. The size “zero” ban is a disingenous attempt at really targeting eating disorders, if any, in Africa’s fashion industry. You want a ban against size “zero” then read the following capped words, STOP USING TEENAGERS TO MARKET FASHION PRODUCTS TO WOMEN.
~Uduak
Founded in 2007, Ladybrille® Magazine is a California based pioneer digital publication demystifying the image of Africans in the west through contemporary African fashion and celebrating the brilliant woman in business and leadership, with an emphasis on the African woman in the diaspora. Our coverage includes stories on capital, access to markets, expertise, hiring and retention, sales, marketing, and promotions.
