The Model as Athlete

This week is New York Fashion Week, when all the fashionable people of the world descend on New York to view the fall collections. There is a fascinating article in The New York Times about a popular fitness trainer for models, Michael Olajide Jr.

The article taught me that it is wrong to assume that models don’t work very hard to achieve their runway thinness. In addition to being genetically blessed with the right proportions and features, they really do have to diet and work out just like athletes.

“Like boxers, [models] have a performance weight and an everyday weight.”

–Michael Olajide Jr.

For most of these models, they have to cut their hip size by up to 2 inches to be able to fit into the extremely tiny sample sizes for New York Fashion Week. The typical sample size has a 34 inch hip according to the article. This is less than a size “00” at The Gap. The models have to be careful with their workouts so they burn fat without bulking muscle, which means no pushups, squats, lunges or situps. Instead these models are mostly jumping rope.

It was nice to know that even models can gain a few inches here and there and refreshing to hear that they don’t require themselves to be runway perfect every single day of the year. Now to convince the fashion industry that 36 inch hips (size 2!) are still extremely thin!