Are there any real strides being made toward size inclusivity on the world's biggest runways?

As Paris Fashion Week comes to a close, fashion journalists Alicia Cox Thomson and Olivia Petter join us to reflect on everything they saw — and didn't see — on this year's runways.

The common thread between all the fashion weeks is the quiet return of the 90s and early-2000s fashion aesthetic of very skinny models (sometimes referred to as "heroin chic").

Thomson and Petter join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about what happened in the end with the body positivity movement, and what might be behind the resurgence of the ultra-thin models we're seeing today.

We've included some highlights below. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Olivia, I'm going to start with you. You work as a journalist in this industry. You know a lot of models, you know a lot of casting agents. What is it that you're noticing right now?

Olivia: I think we've always kind of accepted in this industry that models are very, very thin. That's what designers like. The idea has always been that they don't want the models to take away from the attention of the clothing, so they're essentially just acting as clothing rails, which has kind of been the accepted norm in the industry. But obviously in the last few years, we've had this real wave of body positivity and body inclusivity on the runways and for a while, it felt like the industry was really listening. 

But I think what's happening now is, we've gotten to a point where people are coming away from runway shows thinking, "I didn't see any plus-size models on those runways." And if you do see them, it's one or two. It's very, very much a kind of tokenistic approach, as opposed to an actual inclusive lineup of bodies that we're seeing on the runway. And I think the issue is kind of twofold at the moment, because there's one issue of the lack of diversity in terms of the sizes of bodies that we're seeing on the runway and how representative that is of actual women who wear clothing — which is everyone. And then the other problem is, who is responsible for the health and wellbeing of those models in the first place? Because there's this kind of quiet whispering going around the industry where people are concerned about the wellbeing of these models, and it's a really difficult thing for people in the industry to speak about publicly because no one wants to be making assumptions about a woman's health based on the way that she looks. So, it's really complicated but at the same time, everyone is kind of very aware of being able to tell the difference between someone who is very slim and someone who is very unhealthily slim. It's a very complicated conversation with lots of moving parts.

Elamin: One of those moving parts, Olivia, it seems, is the introduction — and I think we've seen a lot of coverage of this — a bunch of new weight loss drugs. Drugs like Ozempic were intended for people with Type 2 diabetes, but have been widely prescribed to people who don't necessarily need it, who function in industries where body image is kind of everything. How does that tie in to what you're seeing on the runway right now?

Olivia: This is another kind of unspoken thing within the industry. I have a lot of friends who are models, a lot of friends who work in this industry and have worked in this industry for a long time, and it is a well-known fact that a lot of these supermodels who we see on the runways, some of the most famous ones, are said to be taking this drug Ozempic. Obviously no one is doing that openly, but it's a well-known thing among people in the industry that this is a drug that people are taking to either maintain that very, very slim size to ensure that they keep getting cast in shows, or to lose the weight in order to get cast in those bigger shows. Because if you look at actual diversity on the runways — and we saw this in London — there are lots of designers doing very, very big things in terms of diversity, and they're getting all sorts of representation on the runway not just in terms of body size, but in terms of disabilities and sexualities, and all sorts of things. But the designers who are actually doing that tend to be the emerging designers and the somewhat smaller brands. If you look at Paris Fashion Week, it's all the big heritage brands — people like Miu Miu, people like Chanel, people like Dior. Those brands are taking fewer risks, I think, in terms of the diversity stakes, and that is a problem because they're the brands that are really setting the agenda.

Elamin: Alicia, it really seemed like things were heading in a different direction a few years back. There was a lot of talk about body positivity in fashion, and the ways that the fashion industry itself was going to reckon with its own history of how it made us think about our bodies. Was that movement ever actually real?

Alicia: It was real, and it was started with the best of intentions. Creators of all shapes and sizes and colors were flooding social media with body positivity hashtags, brands were showing bodies of all kinds in their ads, and it did feel very empowering. It was a real movement that provided some real benefits, I think, mentally, emotionally for all kinds of women.

But then slowly it started to become toxic, and this positivity became the sort of feeling of, "you have to feel only good about your body. There's no room for bad thoughts about your body." And this sort of morphed into a movement called body neutrality, which was a step further where we can feel all the feelings about our bodies, because we all have complicated feelings about our bodies because of the world we live in. Neutrality kind of seemed to be the next step from positivity. But I agree that these runways have changed, and you have to wonder: is it being treated as a trend? Which is unfortunate, right? You don't want that.

Elamin: Olivia, when I hear what Alicia is talking about, I think I naturally begin to desire a place to put blame, to say, "these are the people responsible for this." Is it as simple as that, as finding a single figure where the buck stops?

Olivia: Well, it is and it isn't.This is something that I really tried to get to the bottom of in my piece, because there are so many people involved in creating a fashion show. You have the casting agents who are responsible for actually casting the models, but obviously the designer is the one making the clothes. Then in terms of the model agents, they are the ones who are technically responsible for the well-being of the models. So every person I speak to in the industry about this problem and who is solving it, the buck is always passed to the next person. 

I tend to find that the designers blame the model agencies, saying, "well, there just weren't enough curve girls this season." And then the agencies blame the designers, saying, "well, they make their clothes weeks in advance before they even cast the shows." So obviously, designers know from the beginning when they start creating their collection how many plus-size models are going to be in that show because they're making the clothes to fit a certain size. … My personal opinion is the buck stops with the designers, because they are the ones fundamentally creating the clothes. But then it's also a question of styling as well. I've occasionally seen shows where they had maybe one plus-size model, and she was completely covered in very, very loose-fitting clothing, whereas the incredibly thin models were walking around in bejeweled knickers. I feel like it's almost kind of redundant if you're going to cast a plus-sized girl and then completely cover her up. It's only enforcing the point that you don't want to be showing those bodies on your runway, and you're just using it as a box ticking exercise.

Elamin:What does that tell you about their approach to how they're thinking about this?

Alicia: I do think the designers definitely have a role in this. But then you think about the money at the top — the money that the designers are being paid, the person who signs the cheque. … I do think that it means people have to maybe fight a little bit more to have these curve models in their show. But it's a cyclical thing. Is it the patriarchy? Is it the world we live in? Who takes this blame? It's a hard question.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.