By Monisha Shivaraj
The fashion industry walks the world like a runway but surely does put on a good amount of makeup to cover up all the dark spots. It shines on the outside but the deeper you look, the darker it gets. Here are some of these dark bits that you didn’t know you needed to know.
Dieting
So apparently models and their perfect bodies come with a lot of side effects. At Least 40% of models suffer from anorexia. Anorexia is an eating disorder causing people to obsess about weight and what they eat. Last year, Victoria secret model, Bridget Malcolm opened up about her struggles of being anorexic. Models have also taken up other dieting methods such as the cotton ball diet. The cotton ball diet is a fad diet that necessitates the intake of cotton balls dipped in juices or smoothies. This diet aims at satisfying the needs of eating without gaining weight.
Although this seems like a good solution, it’s highly criticised as dangerous. Model Bria Murphy revealed that she ate cotton balls dipped in orange juice to maintain and stay in shape. Some models also stay on a 24-hour water diet to stay in weight and shape.
Sexual Assault
One of the biggest flaws of the fashion industry is the frequency of sexual abuse. The miserable part of this is, besides all allegations the fashion world turns a blind eye to all claims. In 2017, Terry Richardson was accused of numerous sexual misconduct allegations.
It was said that he forced models to pose unclothed, however, all of them were denied and no action was taken. In 2018, Mario Testino was also accused of sexual misconduct towards 13 male models, Mario refused the claim and the legal team stated that the allegations were just it without any reliable proof. Many such victims have been ignored.
Drug use
Besides all the glitter and glamour, fashion models have been known to have several different addictions to different drugs. As the fashion industry happens to be extremely competitive, with new models breaking through every day, the career pressure is high. Every average model's career lasts only 5 years. This leads to long working hours, career pressure, and less sleep. To get through all this pressure, models take chemicals that help them. Models are generally addicted to various drugs like:
Cocaine: It boosts energy to keep them awake and alert during long hour shoots
Heroin: To keep their career going as well as deal with emotional trauma, some models overdose on heroin which tends to cloud their mind mentally.
Methamphetamine: meth is highly used by models to lose weight and maintain the same energy during their busy schedules.
Lack of Diversity
The fashion industry is still home to racism and ls are always chosen over the darker tones. we may think that lack of diversity is a blemish only behind the boardroom doors of models, but not. designers reject models of darker color and also entertain other forms of diversity. The models are the face of the brand and the designers like the faces in paler tones. Models with dark skin tones get much lesser opportunities than the ones with fair skin tones. diversity is not just about race, but color, gender, age, and sexual orientation. Models of minority groups are also not encouraged. In 2019, Nafisa, a businesswoman, set up a modeling agency to diversify the runways. The agency was named Lorde, where only non-Caucasian models were employed.
Bullying
It’s funny how we all assume bullying is limited to only high school and college. But guess what, apparently our fashion world supermodels also love bullying each other in various forms. To get above one another in the competitive environment they bully each other in the silliest of ways that might also lead to great damage. 81% of the models are bullied by their very own coworkers. Humiliating, threatening, intimidating, work interference and sabotage are very commonly witnessed and experienced fashion industry mishaps. Mischievous pranks like stealing coworkers' important belongings right before the show and many other forms of silly yet effective pranks have been played on models by their colleagues.
Besides all the perks of being a fashionista or a model other forms of corrupt practices run in the field. Low payments, depression due to all the work pressure, exploitation, and short-lived career, and various other forms of corruption run in the field. Behind the veil charm of the industry, these are some despairing truths.
Comments