Size zero
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Size 0 is a women's clothing size in the US catalog sizes system, believed to be equivalent to a UK size 4 or a European size 32. Due to the current hype about super-slim actresses and models, and a public awareness of eating disorders, it's often incorrectly assumed that size 0 and 00 were invented to fit a new class of dangerously thin women. Size 0 is actually designed to cater to those excluded from standard sizing by vanity sizing.
"Size 0" is often used to refer to extremely thin, emaciated, or shorter individuals (especially women), or trends associated with them. This usage does not always relate to the clothing size - the "size 0 ban" at the Madrid Fashion Week had body mass index as its criterion, not body measurements. This is also associated with anorexia and several other health disorders. Size 0 has become a hit in recent Page 3 culture with some celebrites such as Victoria Beckham adopting it. Karen Carpenter was known to be a Size 0 celebrity. Recently, in India, the Bollywood filmstar Kareena Kapoor created a huge wave by adopting the Size 0 figure.
Fashion concept
In European fashion circles, the concept of 'size 0' models has gained recent notoriety in the media when the organizers of Madrid Fashion Week 2006 prohibited models with a body mass index below 18.5 — classified as unhealthy by the World Health Organization — from participating in the event. International debate followed concerning the purported effects upon impressionable people of the fashion industry's continued use of underweight models.
