A Fashion Find

I don't pretend to know about the trends on the runways or who did what at Fashion Week in NYC. But occasionally I'll read the Style section in the New York Times, and this week I came across a refreshing article about a model who might just be on mission for a more realistic look on the runways -- and by realistic, I mean less 6 foot-half nude-childish-waifs.

“I don’t do nudes, I don’t do semi-nudes, I don’t do cigarette shots,” Coco Rocha was saying on Sunday evening before the Diane Von Furstenberg show at the Bryant Park tents. “It took me a long time in the business to realize I didn’t have to do everything people told me I should if I wanted a career.”

And later...

Now, Mr. Scully said, the sheer number of aspirants is so great that a span of five years (or 10 seasons) is almost enough to qualify a model for a gold watch.

“What happens when these girls develop and turn into women?” Mr. Scully asked. “What’s going to happen to Karlie Kloss,” he added, referring to the teenager discovered at a charity benefit fashion show in her native St. Louis and now one of the most desirable models in the business, “when she develops breasts?”

Ms. Rocha can answer that question. “I’m not in demand for the shows anymore,” said the model, who has worked for Marc Jacobs, Prada, Chanel, Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier and Louis Vuitton, among many others.

Hopefully more designers (and thereby others in the media) will take note of Rocha's points and recognize that women are not children and that a woman's body ages and changes in shape -- and that is not only okay, but part of what it means to be feminine.