My experience on the fashion frontlines at the Karl Lagerfeld show in Paris was full of unexpected good fortune from strangers. After an hour of lying frozen in the same position on the ground of the Tuileries Gardens, wearing nothing but tights and a few trash bags, my limbs were trembling and I had lost all feeling in my hands and feet. I had my eyes closed to maintain the image of being dead, when all of a sudden I heard male voices circling around me.

One Louvre security guard crouched down close to me and started saying that I had to get up and clothe myself, because he was worried that I would become gravely sick. Since the Tuileries Gardens are the property of the Louvre Museum, it is the security guard’s problem if some deranged performance artist freezes to death on the premises. They scooped me up off the ground and seized my “Size Zero Kills” signs, refusing to give them back and threatening to call the police. But the young, adorable security guard who helped me off the ground seemed to be genuinely worried about my health, and said, “It’s a great cause!” He escorted me to the gates overlooking the Obélisque de Louxor in the Place de la Concorde and advised me to exhibit my signs at this strategic entryway.

As I stood with my shield-like signs in hand, my trash bags flapping in the wind, all the paparazzi, socialites, models, designers, and editors walked by to leave the fashion show, each with their own reaction of disdain, excitement, or merely a flash of their iPhone cameras. One statuesque fashionista smiled and shouted, “I’m not a size zero–I’m a size 4!”

Another woman approached me and commented, “But you’re not a size zero.” I replied, “No, I’m a size 4. I was a size zero and I almost died of anorexia.” Her response was: “You look great. You’re not too big, you’re not too small, you’re perfect!” She was so submerged in the fashion industry that even her compliment remained constricted by the ‘thinness institution.’ Nonetheless, it felt like a Chanel ballet flat in the right direction.

Tweet This Post