words by Gabi Logan
In a public forum at Harvard University last Monday, editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia Franca Sozzani appeared with Arianna Huffington and model Doutzen Kroes to discuss modern stereotypes of beauty. Their panel "Health is Beauty: Defining Ourselves" addressed issues of extreme thinness and the eating disorders associated with it.
Sozzani admitted that the fashion industry plays a part in the problem, but she asked the audience to look more deeply at "what leads us to establish that thin is beautiful and that thinness is the aesthetic code we should follow". Discussing the many psychological causes that lead to these disorders, she specifically highlighted the role of pro-anorexia websites in promoting and encouraging these illnesses.
Pro-ana websites supply users with tips, inspirational images of thinness, and food diaries to guide and support extreme weight loss, bulimia, and other dangerous behaviours. Sozzanihas taken a stand to shut them down through a petition on vogue.it because on these sites, she sees "anorexia and bulimia described as an often misunderstood personal lifestyle choice rather than a disorder with very serious
consequences".
Sozzani invoked iconic beauties Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, and Sophia Loren, who would today be called curvy or shapely, to remind the crowd of other enduring images of beauty. Vogue Italia has worked to promote these aesthetic values with a popular curvy issue and it has a healthy issue in the works.
But while Sozzani is taking steps to include other images of beauty in her magazine, she says "it will be impossible to fight this widespread idea of thinness all by ourselves".
