No Models: Director of Designer Sales UK Hosts Pioneering ‘Real People’ Catwalk Show.

Here’s a date for your diary; 20 October 2009 will see the Institute of Contemporary Arts hold a fashion show in which ‘real people’ will model designer clothes.

[UKPRwire, Tue Oct 06 2009] Here’s a date for your diary; 20 October 2009 will see the Institute of Contemporary Arts hold a fashion show in which ‘real people’ will model designer clothes. But it’s not just a philanthropic gesture: the organisers believe that replacing in-vogue ‘size zero’ models with real people could generate increased sales.

Designer Elaine Foster-Gandey said she came up with this idea after hosting a catwalk featuring both models and dancers.

"I asked my customers about it and they said they related to the dancers and not the models," said Foster-Gandey, who is director of Designer Sales UK."I started thinking about what it means to people to look at pictures of stunningly beautiful girls all the time and thought: what am I trying to do? I am very interested in selling clothes, but my customers are real people."

Foster-Gandley is adamant that the ICA event is not about beauty-bashing. “It is about not creating an elite world where no one else can join in,” she insists. “So many people want a chance, but know that because they are five foot tall, or a size 14-16, they never will have."

Foster-Gandey admits that her daughter and stepdaughters have also influenced her attitude to what is an ethical image to portray to the public at fashion events.

"I have a six-year-old daughter and 11- and 15-year-old stepdaughters who are constantly looking in the mirror,” she says. “My stepdaughters are so skinny and so conscious about what they eat and what they see in the media. They are constantly aware of body image issues. It is a big issue for adolescent girls and boys."

Director of talks at the institute, Jennifer Thatcher, has noticed a recent trend towards ‘real people’ featuring more frequently in advertising campaigns and she hopes to generate a debate about the issue as a result of the pioneering event.

"There has been much more in the last year about real people in fashion – it is not just about thinness or ethnicity, but all sorts of issues, including age,” she comments.“But it is not just about fashion industry morality; it is also about the idea of participation and people wanting to be involved. It is going to be quite an experiment."

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