Why fashion is going backwards when it comes to women’s bodies

Sign up to our free Living Well email for advice on living a happier, healthier and longer life Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “I am very concerned, and I know many of my colleagues are very concerned, and I do think perhaps Ozempic has something to do with it.” Nnadi added: “We’re part of this moment where we’re seeing the pendulum swing back to skinny being in, and often these things are treated like a trend, and we don’t want them to be.” Ozempic is a brand name for a drug called semaglutide, which is used to treat type 2 diabetes but has been prescribed off-label for weight loss. Sure, there have been murmurings, like when the fashion director at The New York Times, Vanessa Friedman, tweeted in February 2023: “Even I am distracted by the extreme skinniness of many of the models in Jason Wu’s show.” She later clarified: “I have been around a lot of eating disorders in my life, as well as lots of naturally thin people, and the difference between the two is not hard to recognise. I’m afraid that’s still the case when some designers decide to cast one or two “plus-size” models, which only ever seems like tokenism. According to data compiled by model and body positivity campaigner Felicity Hayward, and published by Glamour, the number of plus-size models during London Fashion Week has been steadily increasing since 2022, with 80 out of 2,000 models considered “curve” or “plus”.