France Passes Model Health Law

The French government has passed a bill decreeing that models working in the country must possess a medical certificate deeming them fit to work, in a bid to prevent the use of "excessively thin" models. The bill also requires that digitally altered images - in particular those which make a model's silhouette "narrower or wider" - be labelled "touched up".

Measured using body mass index (BMI), models' health will be evaluated by a medical professional - who will be permitted to take into account the individual's weight, age, and body shape to ultimately determine their wellbeing,The Fashion Law reports - and companies will be forbidden from employing any model not in possession of a certificate. Any company found to be hiring models who have not provided the certificate will be liable to a fine of more than £50,000 and could be given a prison sentence of up to six months.

Despite the seemingly positive agenda behind the move, model agencies in France are less than impressed - with many feeling that regulating and increasing sample sizes as an industry standard would be a kinder and fairer way to legislate.

"The power is in the hands of designers, photographers and editors," Isabelle Saint-Félix, general secretary of Synam, France's union of model agencies, toldWWD. "They're the ones who make dresses in size 34 or 36, who decide to shoot or feature them. Modelling agencies respond to the demand of advertisers, designers and photographers. One asks models to fit in a dress - not the opposite. I would like everyone to sit around a table and say that the time of models who are too thin is over."