Monday, August 9, 2010

A new look for fashion








The Montreal Fashion & Design Festival took a solid step toward healthy models with the Image Diversity show.

Montrealers got a stylish dose of reality last Friday at the Image Diversity show, a special event under the Montreal Fashion & Design Festival umbrella, which took place Aug. 4 to 7. A group of 15 models representing all shapes, sizes and skin tones paraded up and down the massive outdoors catwalk along McGill College Avenue.

The entire four-day event was organized by Groupe Sensation, the same non-profit team that organizes Montreal’s biannual fashion week. Its founder and co-president Chantal Durivage explained to QMI Agency that she had developed the Image Diversity event to promote a positive message from within the modelling world: “We cannot transform the industry overnight, but we can make small actions.

"In 2006, we decided to take a position around models that were too skinny or too young. We went to hospitals that deal with anorexia. The doctors told us that the main problem occurs with girls under 15. Since then we haven’t accepted models under that age. We also communicate with modelling agencies about the kinds of girls we don’t accept. We ask them to please collaborate, and they do.”

In charge of casting for the show, Artistic Director Sophie Lanza revealed that her search involved modelling agencies that had acting divisions: “I had to make sure they had a lot of confidence.” Instilling self-assurance, noted Lanza, was also the reason for putting all the models in flat shoes (Converse sneakers): “So that they could be comfortable.”

with thanks : source : Torontosun : link in headline for detailed story.

www.sheendesigners.blogspot.com

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