Ch. 3 Ethics and Social Responsibility

Many women these days spend a great deal of time and effort to change and distort the standard female bodies they were born with. Women in this position often believe that only a tall, very skinny body like those of celebrities and fashion models constitutes a normal body. This is because they see people with such bodies all over TV and in magazines all the time. This distorted standard for the female body is propagated among teen-age-girls. In order to attain this notion of the perfect body, they often go on near starvation diets which can lead to anorexia (cyclical fasting and a fear of weight gain) or bulimia (binge eating followed by forced vomiting to avoid weight gain). American Vogue and its 18 international editions have promised to not only promote and encourage a more complete, sensible “healthy body image”, but to also work strictly with models over the age of 16. In many fashion circles girls as young as 14 and 15 often lie about their age to get jobs legally only available to older models.  And due to commonly unregulated age verification, and more directly, to the competitive agendas of under pressure photographers and art directors, these very young models all to often fall into a pattern of dangerously restrictive eating habits that can cause life long health issues as they mature into full adulthood.  The goals set by Vogue to combat these dangerous industry patterns in teenage models means a lot in today’s fashion industry, which seems to change only little by little. 

Vogue also supports many charity events and cause-related campaigns. The magazine makes sustained efforts to raise social responsibility and funds various charities and non-profit organizations. International projects such as Fashion's Night Out, conceived and carried out by the editors of Vogue, provide strong promotional and fund-raising platforms while engaging fashion lovers with local charities around the globe. All 19 Vogue Magazine groups support progressive cancer research for women and children. Through Vogue's Fashion Fund and other related projects, Condé Nast the publisher of American Vogue, actively invests in the developing fashion industry, awarding authoritative profile and career cache to young, emerging designers, helping them build repute and work their way into the ultra competitive international fashion industry.