Everyone complains about the unrealistic standards of beauty that the fashion industry promotes. And now there is an organization in London endorsed by the British Fashion Council that is actively working to create change.
All Walks Beyond the Catwalk works with influential Catwalk designers and top industry creatives to celebrate more diversity within the fashion industry. Diversity not just in terms having models larger than a size 0 featured on the catwalk, but diversity in the age, ethnicity and shape of the models. The models on the photos below are examples from their 2011 Spring London Fashion Week Campaign.
Despite the fact that the average woman is a size 12 or larger, in the world of models and mannequins, a size 10 is considered a “plus size.” So it is no surprise that there is a BIG disconnect between fashion designers and the people who actually wear their clothes. And no wonder so many women have body image issues. Whether through the heavy use of photoshopping in magazines or featuring only freakishly thin women on the catwalk, the fashion industry manipulates us into have a very narrow image of what constitutes beauty.
All Walks Beyond the Catwalk is credited with encouraging Edinburgh College of Art to become the first fashion school in the UK to introduce size 18 mannequins to train the designers of the future. The All Walks founders, including TV presenter and fashion guru Caryn Franklin, hope the mannequins will enable graduates to become more versatile and be able to cut clothes for all shapes and sizes.
Mannequin Madness has a wide variety of plus size mannequins and dress forms that we hope more retailers and designers will start buying. We are tired of customers who don’t any mannequin larger than a size 8 to display their clothes when their target audience wears a size 12.
All Walks Beyond the catwalk has a wonderful blog, especially this post about the changing shape of the ideal woman throughout history. We love this quote from their blog “Women are bombarded with diets, fitness regimes and celebrities showcasing the skinny ‘ideal’. Today we are trying to tackle the pressure on women to be skinny, emphasizing that they should be able to celebrate their body no matter what shape, size, age or ethnicity they may be. Join us in showing the decade that we’re happy with our bodies and that we want to celebrate body diversity!”
