According to an article by Georgia Graham appearing on the International Business Times, Clements was fired last year after 25 years of service and has penned a book entitled, The Vogue Factor, in which she exposes the very unglamorous life led by today's top models.
"One of the most shocking claims to come out of the book is that models still frequently starve themselves to stay super skinny, often resorting to eating tissues to help them feel full," Graham writes. "Clements details a lunch date with an unidentified Russian model who claimed her roommate is a fit model 'so she is in hospital on a drip a lot of the time'.”
The book also details stories of models fainting and being so listless with hunger that they could barely walk.
Clements also asserts that it was quite common for models to have breast reduction surgery if they couldn't "diet their breasts away", she writes.
Another incident recalled in the book was a three-day fashion shoot in Marrakesh during which time she never once saw the top model eat a meal. On the last day of the job, the model was so weak she could hardly hold herself up.
This isn't the first time an editor has spoken up about the dark side of the catwalk. Although many are criticizing Clements for the book, accusing her of taking revenge on her sudden sacking from Vogue last May, she's not the first to pen such an unglamorous book about the fashion industry. Others have spoken out as well, such as Imogen Edward-Jones who published Fashion Babylon in 2006 in which she reports on models who take laxatives and diet pills to maintain a size 0 figure.
The problem of rail-thin, anorexic models is pervasive throughout the industry, contributing to not only the poor health of the models but to the millions of girls and women who try to emulate them.
In fact, it has gotten so bad that last year, 19 Vogue editors from around the world, including Clements, signed The Health Initiative, a pledge not to work with models who appear to be unhealthy or who are under the age of 16. The pledge also calls for healthier working conditions backstage, including the availability of healthy food options for models. Promising to be ambassadors for the promotion of healthy body image, the editors also vowed to encourage designers to stop producing unrealistically small sample sizes which limits the range of women who can model their clothes.
As Clements said at the time, "We are not claiming that we will fix the problem overnight, but a healthy discussion will almost certainly lead to a more healthy future."
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