...Alber Elbaz! In his interview in Style's Future Of Fashion series the Lanvin chubster has come out with a rather grand sweeping statement that not only is loaded with contradictions but reads more like a grasping attempt to convince himself of his argument rather than those at the receiving end of the comments;

"We are being accused that some models are anorexic, but we as fashion designers cannot be blamed, because you know, when I talk to women around the world, rich and poor and young and old and intellectual and not, what they want to be is skinny. You ask them, what is your dream? It’s to be skinny. That’s all they want... Me, as a designer that is not exactly skinny, all I want is comfortable clothes. All I want is beautiful. I mean, I like gray hair, I love wrinkles. But this is me."

Now whilst he's nailed it in that fashion designers are by no means to blame for anorexia (despite holding a duty of responsibility) and yes, given the choice we'd rather be lissome than large, his affirmation that the entire female population's one dream in life is to be thin (and that's all we want; not health, domestic bliss, a prosperous career - just to be skinny) is thoroughly loathsome. Elbaz is suggesting that we are all mindless, sheep-like, media-driven, brainwashed drones that only clamour after the Holy Grail of emaciation no matter how dumb or smart we are. Got that ladies? Fuck our individualism: we share the same goal apparently!

Unquestionably the women he talked to inhabit the vacuous little bubble that is fashion (so kinda a biased survey, right?) but throwing in the fact he ain't no sylph-like guy smacks of justifying he has carte blanche to make ridiculous statements. It reads like, 'yeah this is just what women want, I only make tiny clothes because it's supplying demand, but me? No I'm a fatty who'd be happy making comfy shit - no wait! I want beautiful as well. Hang on, aging rocks too, honest!'

Way to dig your own hole, Alber.

Posted on May 18, 2010 at 5:30:12 by The Real Runway