Milan Fashion Week kicked off with another band of glamorous models sashaying down the runway, yet there was one notable difference: They had flesh on their bones. With the row over too-thin models rumbling on, it was ironic that the opening show in the famously chic Italian fashion capital featured clothes for the fuller-figured.
Size 14 and 16 models strutted their stuff at the Elena Miro fashion show, displaying busts, hips and bottoms with abandon. Curves were confidently on show and body mass indices, the measure of body fat based on height and weight and the rating that has caused so much controversy in the past week, were clearly not an issue.
It was a fortunate but accidental piece of timing that the plus-size fashion label was the first to show its designs in Milan, ahead of a week that will be dominated by Gucci, Versace and Dolce and Gabbana.
Elena Miro is a staple on Milan's fashion calendar and the show had been scheduled before the debate over too-thin models broke out. The designer label made the most of its time in the spotlight, however, saying that it made clothes for "real women."
"We've always designed for the rounded woman," said Giuseppe Miroglio, head of the clothing division. "A woman shouldn't be skinny or fat. She should be the size that is natural to her. Women are all different but all women can be beautiful."
The fashion label caters for women whose sizes range from 12 to 26, but, according to Miroglio, its core customer will be in the 16-18 range. "We like to think that we design for real women," he added. "They're feminine and sexy and they will show a lot of decollete. We don't think our customers should miss out on fashion just because they are not the standard sizes.'
The fashion crowd has been beset by a debate about overly thin models since the organizers of Madrid's Pasarela Cibeles fashion week said it was excluding five girls whose BMI was too low. The furore dominated London fashion week with models such as Lily Cole declaring that she was thin but healthy, and that the dangers of slimming for the catwalk had been over-exaggerated.
