You know, in France there are 18 percent of girls overweight between 25 and 15, so I mean, that's a lot, that's unhealthy too, huh?"

Karl Lagerfeld,
Fancy dress designer and ectomorph
defending skinny models
October 4, 2006 (IHT/AP)

IHT continues:

It was unclear which statistics Lagerfeld was referring to, but figures from France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research show the percentage of people over 15 who qualify as overweight rose to 41.6 in 2003 from 36.7 in 1997. An estimated 0.2 percent of women in France suffer from anorexia, data shows.

Ah, yes, data not notions. With a mere scientific canvasing, the thin French fairy tale is debunked and the fashion world debates thin or fat for its catwalks.

MODELS' SKINNINESS CAN'T BE REGULATED: FRANCE

PARIS September 15, 2006 (AFP) - The shape and size of fashion models cannot be regulated, the head of the French couture federation has said, after models deemed too skinny were reportedly banned from the catwalk in Spain.

Didier Grumbach, president of the couture federation and chamber of haute couture, told AFP late Thursday that "everyone would laugh" if France attempted to follow suit.

... "If Jean Paul Gaultier wants to take fat people for his catwalk shows, we are not going to stop him. When (John) Galliano puts on the catwalk people who are not pretty pretty, no one thinks to reproach him," he added.

Why do we bother with French fat stories? Dear reader, because "fat" is a funny word. It is a word ready-made to laugh at.* And we are never more entertained than when we are laughing at French pretensions. And the notion of a French nation chock-a-block with trim French folk is a very funny pretension. It puts us in mind of the matron who visits her wedding dress in the closet believing it represents an eternal truth.

* One only need visit Pave's early threads where the throwaway epithet "fat American" is the high point of crushing French wit. The subtext being that France in the abstract -- not the correspondent himself -- was slim and and strut-worthy.

PFFT (What is this?): Catwalk fairy tale 3 | Rayonnement français 0