Model Karlie Kloss walks the runway during the 2011 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show at the Lexington Avenue Armory on November 9, 2011 in New York City. (Getty Images)more pics »Fashion and modeling can be a cutthroat and ruthless world, but Vogue Italia, the pinnacle of fashion magazines, took an unprecedented step in combatting that reputation after removing one of the images from their site.
The image in question (left) is a black and white shot of supermodel and Victoria's Secret Angel Karlie Kloss, and it was taken down after Vogue editors discovered the picture was being used on pro-anorexia websites as a source of what those sites call "thinspiration." Kloss, 19, looks thin to the point of appearing starved in the photo that has her posed in unzipped micro-shorts revealing a protruding hip bone and oddly contorted and defined abdominal muscles.
While no one is implying anything about Kloss, who attributes her slight figure (she has a 23 inch waist) to her years as a dancer, the image certainly creates an unrealistic and potentially unhealthy standard of thinness or fitness. Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani has long spoken out against pro-anorexia websites, and the magazine was quick to react to the influx of comments from those worried the Kloss photograph would encourage young girls to match the model's frail figure in ways that are dangerous to their bodies.
Upon pulling the controversial image, Sozzani released the following statement, nodding to her campaign and petition against pro-anorexia sites:
Vogue Italia, the magazine par excellence that deals with and promotes aesthetics and beauty, has decided to make use of its authority and its readers on the web (over one million of contacts per month), to battle against anorexia and collect signatures with the final goal of shutting such sites down."Although Franca has removed the image and publicly denounced those sites that advocate anorexia, as the editor-in-chief, she likely had a role in approving the image in the first place, which leaves the President of the National Eating Disorders Association Lynn Grefe with mixed emotions. “I think it’s great that [Vogue Italia] pulled it,” she said. “If they recognized that it was a bad image, that it was having a bad effect ... I’m sorry they put it up there in the first place, but good for them for pulling it.”
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