Categories: Need to know

“Fat” Kate Moss a sign of lean economic times

In times like these, we don’t like our models quite so skinny

by macleans.ca on Monday, April 27, 2009 1:54pm - 5 Comments

Teeny-tiny supermodel and style-setter Kate Moss’s recent weight gain is heralded by the Times of London as part of the fashion world’s shift away from “death-camp-teen look” models to “statuesque“ 1990s models like Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista. Though Moss has added only enough poundage to require her to wear a bra for the first time in her life, she’s on trend with the larger economically driven acceptance of larger sizes, the paper argues. As proof, it cites an “exhaustive” academic study of the bodily dimensions of Playboy models from 1960 to 2000, which found that when social and economic conditions were tough, the Playmates selected tended to be older and heavier, and have “larger waists, smaller eyes, larger waist-to-hip ratios, smaller bust-to-waist ratios, and smaller body mass index values.”

The Sunday Times

Critical Reasoning

Cocaine supresses the appetite. When times are tough, models have less disposable income to spend on cocaine. When their cocaine consumption decreases, their appetite increases, so they eat more food. This explains why models get heavier when the economy gets worse.

Brad

Interesting hypothesis. How do you control for variables like temporary supply interruptions caused by interdictions of cocaine shipments, or social changes to body image like harem pants? Do you think you can use the Playboy data and add your own data set to correlate cocaine supply and weight gain?

Critical Reasoning

LOL. Personally, I am not qualified to take on a research project of this magnitude. Let us hope that somewhere, an innovative social scientist is studying this vitally important matter.

R. Somers

Or Scott Feschuk…
Brad

The author implies that it is a choice issue: that editors are choosing plumper, more mature models in tough times. If this is the case, and they are the wealthier models of the time, does their cocaine consumption go up or commence? If so, we might see previously-plump models becoming suddenly-skinny – like Renee Zeilwigger after a Bridget Jones movie. (No intended correlation to cocaine use there.)