Model Isabelle Caro has died.Model Isabelle Caro has died at 28, presumably from causes linked to her long-time battle with anorexia.

Our first clue that something happened was tied to the sudden rise of one of our many article on the fashion industry and body image: Uban Hassan Does Look More Like Ralph Lauren’s Photoshop Version of Filippa Hamilton.

Isabelle Caro was also featured in our response to one of the stranger articles newly-hired, very talented News Beast style writer Robin Givhan wrote about the fashion industry and fashion models: A New Point of View: Concentration-Camp-Inspired Models Are Fat Women’s Fault.

As American women becomes more obese, models become skinnier. “The fatter the general population, the thinner the idealized woman.” Maybe it’s “self-loathing” that makes super-skinny women look so good to the chunkier masses.

While I agree with many points in Givhan’s essay, her logic — which leaves the fashion industry off the hook on model size, until women lose weight — escapes me. I’ve seen no documentation that women — except for the slimmest fashionistas — embrace this model imagery in any way.

I am very clear in my mind that we can package the model BMI debate however we wish. Writing about feminism, fashion, religion and sexuality concurrently gives me a perspective different from most.

My own impression is that both America’s (and the world’s) obesity problem and 15 BMI models are part of the same patriarchal, religious, aristocratic power trip.

Fashion’s Male Patriarchy

1) Fashion may be about fantasy as Robin Givhan writes, but it is also about control, consumption, defining self-image, and maintaining prevailing, patriarchal values. Fashion is also dominated by gay men, many of whom would prefer a world without women. At the very least, they have no respect or like for female sexuality.

2) The ideal woman is asexual to many men in fashion. I have argued with consistency that expressed female sensuality gives some male designers nightmares. There are gay men designers who worship female sexuality, and I include Tom Ford at the top of that list. There is never been a quarrel in my mind over Tom Ford’s motives about women’s place in the world.