03.15.2005:Female Muscle Meets Heroin Chic By Lisa Bavington

SUBMITTED TO ME BY LISA BAVINGTON

Fashion models have aimed to be thin for years now, not just thin, but super-thin. Some with such determination that they have successfully developed a myriad of problems with addiction relating to both food and drugs. However, a noticeable shift occurred during the mid-1990's that had fashion photography producing provocative images that glamorized heroin abuse. Twiggy may have been the first to usher in the anorexic look of the "hanger-girls", but this waif-like image became even more accentuated, with models appearing like drug addicts, sporting dark circles under glazed eyes. The look dubbed heroin chic, initially targeted at young people, went public when mainstream photographers began adopting the style for high-profile commercial advertising campaigns.

This brand of fashion photography has been successful at marketing addiction alongside fashion; as women continue to consume their product in mass quantities. A number of models from New York, who had been interviewed in Rolling Stone magazine, had began to use and/or become addicted to heroin in order to get work in a market that demanded the look. Although popular for what seemed like a long period of time, heroin chic fell out of fashion within the business and has been replaced with something that may be much more dangerous. The issue has become more about the way in which young women choose to deal with a much tougher addiction to food, rather than the nature of the drug itself, and continue a career in an industry that glamorizes the weak female form.

 Muscle Politics

 President Clinton may have told the fashion industry leaders that they "do not need to glamorize addiction to sell clothes" in 1997, but Gloria Steinem got it right in The Politics of Muscle when she argued that:

"Women of my generation grew up believing "as many girls still do ”that the most important thing about a female body is not what it does but how it looks. The power lies not within us but in the gaze of the observer... whether bosomy or flat, zaftig or thin, the female ideal remains weak... society's acceptance of muscular women may be one of the most intimate, visceral measures of change.''

If we look at the other extreme, namely the hyper muscular woman and her portrayal in the media, we begin to see the issue very differently. Female muscularity is thought to be particularly offensive to a number of mainstream publications as it contradicts notions of gender appropriateness. However, when compared to "acceptable" images of womanhood, these images serve as powerful reminders of the real dangers of marketing addiction to young women. These models must begin to be compared with someone other than themselves and each other, in order to understand the tremendous impact this type of mindless commercialism has on the perception of those that hold them up as sources of inspiration. The model that should affect our sensibilities is the one meant to target and encourage women into adopting dangerous addictions, related to food initially and drugs soon thereafter, to be able to "fit" with the next fashion trend.

 Female Muscle Meets Heroin Chic

 Female bodybuilders and mainstream models both represent extremes in terms of physical development, sharing a similar goal in terms of altering their body composition, but representing polar opposites in their acceptability and perception by mainstream society. That fact may soon be changing. Sadly, the physique that strives for excessive thinness by using a combination of food/drugs to tear down her body to become weaker flourishes over one that aims to build it up and become stronger. One is celebrated by the media while the other is criticized; one is over marketed while the other rarely publicized; one is set up for mainstream acceptance while the other for certain rejection. Society refuses to see the negative impact of the fashion model and the potential positive message that a strong female physique is capable of sending.

The way we have been constructed as individuals to view both these women is difficult to challenge. Fashion photography is clearly more persuasive, causes greater danger and has the potential to negatively influence young girls as they seek to define and develop into mature women. By focusing on models that look sickly, rather than healthy and promoting weakness over strength, advertisers continue to send a message of acceptability for the addictive behaviors they inspire and influence generations of women to buy into their twisted sense of liberation and false consciousness.

Heroin chic was likely developed as a result of a group of models who had begun using the drug for the purposes of dealing with their disordered eating habits in order to make them more successful in one addiction and/or alleviate the pain in the other. Young women need only to look at the pictures in order to internalize this continuous assault on their bodies that has taught them to remain passive and weak. Advertisers are still not held to the same standards for communicating these messages to young women, as the tobacco and alcohol giants for targeting teens in their ad campaigns. The fashion industry must stop producing these images NOW and no period of adjustment is acceptable; there has already been too much damage done. The reversal of this message has been a long time coming and for most of those that fell victim, it may already be too late