Kering and Louis-Vuitton-Moёt-Hennessy have teamed up to help end model mistreatment. Despite their ongoing competition, the groups have worked together on an agreement which stipulates that designers in the companies owned by the groups will not hire models under the age of 16 to model clothing for adult women. Additionally, there will be a blanket ban on all models under size 34 (a NZ size six). Currently, in French law, there is legislation requiring working models to possess a medical certificate which authorises them as healthy enough to work.
This legislation details minimum body mass indices and fat percentages that the models must measure up to, although the legislation allows for the certificate to be a few years old. Kering and LVMH’s new rules will require these medical certificates are no more than six months old. Additionally, the agreement set up a hotline for models to call in order to report mistreatment anonymously. This hotline follows the uproar which occurred in 2016 when models claimed that casting agents at Balenciaga (owned by Kering) kept models trapped in an unlit stairwell without access to food or water. These new rules aim to set a healthy new precedent within the fashion industry which will halt negative ramifications of fashion advertising on both models and female consumers. Coming into effect soon in France will be legislation which requires magazines to label retouched images, so it is evident which body shapes are natural and which are digitally altered.
