Washington Post fashionista Robin Givhan has struck again. This time she’s arguing for regulation of the fashion industry and defending the little people – America’s skinny models.
Givhan led off her article with a blatant attack [1] on industry – all industry. “If anyone ever needed evidence of why industries should not be allowed to police themselves, the Council of Fashion Designers of America just provided it,” she wrote.
The reason? Givhan wasn’t satisfied with the guidelines set down by the association trying to prevent the international crisis of thin models. She blasted the CFDA’s six-point plan as “pure mumbo jumbo that outlined educational workshops and the importance of eating your vegetables.”
The Givhan piece, headlined “They're Going, Going . . . Gaunt: As Industry Demands Thinner Models, Health Policy Rings Hollow,” admitted that the “last thing” an industry needs is “heavy-handed bureaucrats or zealous activists.” Then she added: “But if models continue to look like cadavers, that may be inevitable.”
Givhan won the Pulitzer Prize for her decidedly left-wing take on people in power and the clothes they wear. In 2005, she skewered [2] Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for her black outfit and boots. “Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power – such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal.”
According to the Media Research Center’s Brent Baker [3] “Givhan complained that at a gathering of world leaders to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Dick Cheney ‘was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower.’”
But Tim Graham, also of the MRC, noted [4] she approved of how Saddam Hussein dressed and said it was “almost jaunty and rakish – like Sinatra or Dino in Vegas.”