'There Are No Size Zeros On the London Catwalk' ; When Hilary Riva Took Over the British Fashion Council, She Stepped Into a Furious Debate About Underweight Models. Here She Explains Her Views On Anorexia and Why London Is the Centre of the Fashion World

Evening Standard - London › February 14, 2007

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Summary

HILARY Riva, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, is angry. Not just cross, or a bit fed up, but really, properly furious. She feels "got at", she says; as though she, personally, is "the cause of anorexia nervosa in the UK right now".

She is angry that the skinny models controversy - the size-zero debate - has focused on, and "abused", certain catwalk models who are unable publicly to defend themselves. She is angry, most of all, that the row threatens to overshadow the celebration of British talent that is London Fashion Week, which opened yesterday and which the BFC organises and helps fund. "This is really important," she says, "too important to be trivialised. I've got The Sun newspaper advertising for anorexic girls to go and present a petition [at LFW] and be paid Pounds 250 for it. Do you think that's good for them? We had the BBC delivering a skeleton here. They delivered a piece of cake. They turned up here at the reception [of the BFC] and started filming, wanting us to contribute to this balanced piece they were doingYes, I'm angry. I'm angry about the whole approach to it, the vilification of individuals, the bullying of models, which is outrageous. Yes, you can quote me on all of that."

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'There Are No Size Zeros On the London Catwalk' ; When Hilary Riva Took Over the British Fashion Council, She Stepped Into a Furious Debate About Underweight Models. Here She Explains Her Views On Anorexia and Why London Is the Centre of the Fashion World

Riva's assistant is looking nervous. I'm guessing, having spent an hour and a half with her, that Riva is not a woman to suffer fools gladly - or at all, ever - and that every London journalist, save a few senior fashion editors, is a fool in her opinion. I imagine groomed fashionistas quaking in her presence.

At one point, when I ask her whether her views on the size-zero debate might be different were she the mother of daughters - she has three sons - she narrows her eyes a...

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