Fashion Leaders Discuss Model Welfare at Be Well Collective Event

Models, fashion industry heads and wellness experts came together at London's Corinthia Hotel on Tuesday to discuss model wellbeing ahead of London Fashion Week .

The event was run by the Be Well Collective , a non-profit set up by model and nutritionist Sarah Ann Macklin, who has used her own first hand experience working in the fashion industry to build a support network for models.

Macklin was joined on stage by a number of fashion industry leaders, including the British Fashion Council's Chief Executive Caroline Rush .

Rush acknowledged the high-pressure working environment of the fashion industry could hinder efforts to protect its workers.

"One of the biggest challenges of engaging the fashion community is just the pace that everybody works at" she said, "and finding the time to actually talk about this, [for leaders] to create the culture that makes time to engage in those conversations."

Sarah Ann Macklin and Rose Percy (@helen_mulvaney_photography)

Other fashion industry speakers at the event included Rose Percy, Head of Production at Burberry, and Karen Diamond, owner and director of Models 1 - one of the biggest modelling agencies in Europe.

"The model industry is completely unregulated" said Diamond, "so there are no rules or regulations about how we run our businesses and what we have to do to look after [models] - so we self-regulate." She talked about her agency's role in the BFMA (British Fashion Model Agents Association) which was set up to safeguard the treatment of models.

"Model agents are kind of down there with estate agents and politicians as kind of the lowest form of life" she said, "I mean the press that we get is absolutely dreadful - especially during London Fashion Week because there's a huge spotlight on [models] there's always going to be a front page picture of a slim model who has been shot at an angle to look incredibly thin, which then becomes something which is being celebrated [...] the reality is you do have to be strong and healthy [to be a model]."

She added that there was a lot of "misinformation about how to achieve a [model physique]" and said working with the Be Well Collective has been invaluable in giving models a safe space to talk about their physical and mental health away from their agents - "[models] need to deal with [mental and physical health problems] early, before it becomes an extreme problem."

Read the full article by Lucy Pavia at ES Insider