British supermodel Karen Elson has slammed designers for using ‘skeletal’ girls on the catwalk at New York Fashion Week and said the sight of them made her ‘want to cry’.
The Vogue cover star, 46, became one of the most famous faces in the Nineties – strutting the catwalk with Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell.
And now she has confessed she was left ‘heartbroken’ when she saw how thin some of the models were.
Karen claimed one model who has walked the catwalk over the past week included a woman who had lost her period because she was so underweight.
‘One thing I’ve noticed this week is how painfully thin so many people are. This is not ‘fit and lean’ slender, it’s skeletal,’ Karen admitted.
‘Hip bones sharp enough to shank you, all edges and no softness, hollow silhouettes. It’s heartbreaking.’
British supermodel Karen Elson, 46, has slammed designers for using ‘skeletal’ girls on the catwalk at New York Fashion Week, as she confessed that she ‘genuinely wanted to cry’
The Vogue cover star said she was ‘heartbroken’ when she saw how thin some models were (models pictured on Monday – Karen did not specify which show she was referring to)
The former face of Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Dior wrote on Substack that at one NYFW show, she spoke to a model who was told she was ‘too big’ to book jobs this season.
But Karen described the mode as a ‘statuesque wisp of a girl’ and asked, ‘how can she possibly be made to feel ‘huge’?’
‘Don’t those saying such things realise how hateful and destructive those words are, not only to the individual hearing them, but to society at large?’
She said she was horrified when the same model admitted she had not had her period for six months due to extreme dieting.
‘I genuinely wanted to cry hearing this because those perpetrating this are woefully ignorant about the long-term effects that has on a woman’s body and trust me they are catastrophic,’ she added.
‘Over the years, I’ve watched so many wonderful young women in this industry spiral into the hell of eating disorders, it takes a lot of hard work to recover – especially in an industry like fashion.’
Karen’s comments come amid renewed concern about the health of models as ultra-thin physiques once again dominate runways.
The industry has made repeated pledges towards ‘body positivity’, but Karen accused designers and casting directors of hypocrisy.
‘One thing I’ve noticed this week is how painfully thin so many people are. This is not ‘fit and lean’ slender, it’s skeletal,’ Karen admitted (pictured in September 2024)
‘How can the industry preach body positivity while, behind the scenes, young women are being encouraged to starve themselves to work?’ she wrote. ‘It’s terrifying and deeply disappointing.’
She added she had had body image issues and disordered eating early in her career.
‘I struggled with body dysmorphia myself when I was younger, not because I ever truly thought I was ‘too big,’ but because I was told I had to lose weight to work,’ she recalled.
‘I was made to feel guilty if I didn’t look hungry. Modeling was my one-way ticket out of a hopeless situation back home, and if going hungry was what it took to prevent the one-way ticket home, I did it.
‘Looking back, it’s sickening to realise how my livelihood was tied to how thin I was; and yet, that’s still the reality for so many young models today.’
Karen insisted that models themselves are not responsible for the problem, but rather the system that demands impossible proportions.
‘People often blame models for promoting unhealthy body types, but in truth it’s the industry pulling the strings, making us feel less-than,’ she said.
‘Designers have a preferred body type, but very few women naturally fit those proportions, aside from teenage girls or those who go hungry.’
The supermodel argued that fashion must do more to ‘value the human wearing the clothes beyond her silhouette’, asking why only a select few women – those with the ‘supermodel’ label – are granted the freedom to be themselves.
‘What I find most confusing is this: fashion is for women and yet some of the women walking the runway are often starving,’ she continued.
‘A handful of us who’ve earned the ‘supermodel’ label have a bit more leeway to be ourselves, but why not the rest?
Karen argued that fashion must do more to ‘value the human wearing the clothes beyond her silhouette’, asking why only those with the ‘supermodel’ label can be themselves
‘Would it really be catastrophic for the industry to size samples a little bigger? How can fashion be inspirational when it presents clothes on women who feel they must go hungry to fit them? Isn’t that the definition of contradiction, or is it just me?’
Karen, who now combines her modelling career with work as a singer-songwriter and activist, said she was not seeking to ‘point fingers’, but wanted to ignite a conversation about the dangerous pressures within fashion.
‘I do think it’s an important debate, because I think there is a collective blindness in my industry to recognise that this is a problem,’ she wrote.
Karen, who has two children with her ex-husband, The White Stripes lead singer Jack White, is now married to music studio boss Lee Foster.
