With mental health being one of the hot button issues of 2019, fashion brands have been taking extra care to ensure their label puts on a healthy and diverse appearance to their consumers. Luxury fashion group Kering has taken this one step further by implementing internal policies which will help them to facilitate a healthy fashion culture both inside their own brand’s and on the broader fashion sphere.
The French fashion group owns a variety of major fashion houses which are among the most influential in the world, including Alexander McQueen, Gucci and Saint Laurent and has announced that all of their houses will now refuse to cast models under the age of 18.
“We believe that we have a responsibility to put forward the best possible practices in the luxury sector, and we hope to create a movement that will encourage others to follow suit,” said the company’s chief executive, François Henri-Pinault.
Kering is not the first major organisation to announce the movement away from younger models. C Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue Magazine also committed to the movement in August of last year.
Both brands have cited the increasing physical and emotional pressures of a career in modelling as a primary reason for the enforced age restriction. Sexual harassment allegations and sexualisation of young girls bought to light by the #MeToo were also a stimulus for the limitation.
In 2016 Kering signed an agreement to stop hiring models under the age of 16, and this latest announcement demonstrates the brand’s strengthened resolve to put a stop to industrial exploitation. The policy will be implemented as of the group’s 2020-2021 Autumn Winter collection showcases.
