0 is NOT a size!!! By: Mpiwa Bagwasi

It is nearly 3 years ago when the world watched an emaciated model faint on the modelling ramp in front of many fashion spectators at the Madrid fashion Week. The world celebrated as the initiative was taken by the organisers to ban underweight models from walking the ramp. Despite the advancement, there has been serious backtracking as it seems that size 0 has stealthily moved back into fashion.
Fillippa Hamilton has been a loyal model to Ralph Lauren for 8 years, this is why it came as a complete shock for her when she was booted off by the organisation she considered her second family. What came as a bigger shock to the world and to her was the reason why she was booted off, she says “They fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn't fit in their clothes anymore”, mind you, she is only 120 pounds, which is equivalent to 60kg, which is the perfect size for her 5-foot-10 height. As if this is enough damage, the bigger problem is that the ad she modelled for Ralph Lauren was photo shopped to the extreme that she could not recognize her body, she was made extremely skinny and Hamilton believed that the photoshoppped picture sent the wrong message to the public.http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/fashion/2009/10/14/2009-10-14_model_fired_for_being_too_fat.html
Various newspapers and online newspapers, interestingly covered this story, some were outraged at the shocking photo of Hamilton http://www.accesshollywood.com/content/images/104/230x306/104458_a-polo-ralph-lauren-ad-from-tokyo-which-was-originally-posted-on-photoshop-disasters-and-which-the-fashion-maker-admitted-is-authentic.jpg and others completely slated Ralph Lauren-who were the miniminds behind the photo shopping, while others expressed their disgust towards the message being portrayed by the modelling world and others like myself were most disappointed at the fact that the idealistic image of size 0 models that had been polished was creeping back into fashion. The tabloids seemed more interested in the scandalous aspect of the story, emphasizing on the fact that the Ralph Lauren ad was photo shopped to make Hamilton look ridiculously skinny, such a online newspaper which thrived on this was http://www.gossipcheck.com/latest-gossip/9806-photoshopped-ralph-lauren-model-fired-being-overweight.html#post19306.
After all is said and done, the media has the power to silence the world of modelling that believe that skinny is healthy as well as the designers who only makes clothes for the super skinny and they can shout “ 0 is NOT a size!”