“Fat” Kate Moss a sign of lean economic times

Teeny-tiny supermodel and style-setter Kate Moss’s recent weight gain is heralded by the Times of London as part of the fashion world’s shift away from “death-camp-teen look” models to “statuesque“ 1990s models like Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista. Though Moss has added only enough poundage to require her to wear a bra for the first time in her life, she’s on trend with the larger economically driven acceptance of larger sizes, the paper argues. As proof, it cites an “exhaustive” academic study of the bodily dimensions of Playboy models from 1960 to 2000, which found that when social and economic conditions were tough, the Playmates selected tended to be older and heavier, and have “larger waists, smaller eyes, larger waist-to-hip ratios, smaller bust-to-waist ratios, and smaller body mass index values.”

The Sunday Times