I'm going to deviate from my normal blog format to share with you a speech I gave on March 11 at Harvard Medical School. It may pertain to you, or someone you know.

The topic was eating disorders and the fashion business, or as I like to call it, "Fashion Kills."

A SHOCKING CALL
Three years ago on a warm Saturday night, my cell phone rang. I was with friends so I didn't answer the first time, but it just kept ringing. When I finally checked my voicemail it was from my youngest daughter, and she was in a state of panic. My eldest daughter was having a breakdown and might seriously hurt herself.

I told my youngest to get her sister to a hospital and I met them there. The doctors told me that her physical condition was not serious, but that I should watch her closely for the next 24 hours. I took her home with me. She was in a terrible mental state, but I had no idea what was wrong.

She began an intense therapy regime the following morning, which she continued for many months. It was in therapy that I discovered my daughter had bulimia, but what was revealed next was even more startling -- I was a major cause of her illness.

A CRY FOR HELP
You see, I'm a fashion designer. All her life, my daughter wanted my attention. She wanted me to think she was as pretty as the women and models I dressed. She would try to fit into my sample sizes, which by any standards were small-- size 2-4.

In order to feel better about herself, she lost weight. She purged, took laxatives -- whatever it took to get thin. It became an addiction. She had developed this terrible disease and for what? To get me to notice her, which of course I did. Before I knew she was sick, I told her how great she looked, unknowingly adding fuel to the fire.

I couldn't figure out how it had gotten this bad. Why had my sample sizes shrunk every year? Who was I trying to impress? Did I really think it was aesthetically pleasing to see girls getting thinner and thinner?

The answer is no. In the early nineties, supermodels like Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista were all sizes 4-6, and they were the epitome of beauty -- thin but healthy. What had happened?

TAKING ACTION
I started to look into this trend of emaciation. Where did it come from? The answers was simple: I was doing what I thought I had to do to get the attention of the critics. The people who decide whether you're in or out. The editors who insist that their taste is the only taste. They are the reason designers hire bony models and modeling agencies tell their clients that a size 6 is too fat. They're the reason why organizations don't stick their necks out to put an end to this terrible trend.

I started to look into my own organization, the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America), a group made up of the leading designers in America, to see if they would take action. Why wouldn't they do anything to stop this? Other countries were setting restrictions on model weights, but my organization would only recommend small solutions to a huge problem. The CFDA would not take any responsibility.

THE UGLY TRUTH
Do people really believe that bone thin models are attractive? I have asked numerous men and women if they think such models are attractive and guess what -- 100% of them said no. They much prefer the models of the early nineties.

So who exactly thinks the anorexic look is hot? A handful of editors who think clothes look better on girls built like hangers than on healthy women. Their elitism is the reason girls are getting sick and dieting, and I'm not just talking about models. I'm talking about young girls who start dieting at age seven. I'm talking about the 80% of 10-year old girls who think they are fat. I am talking about all the women who feel lousy about themselves for not being emaciated thanks to a standard that's attainable only through starvation, purging or drugs. I'm talking about my daughter.

We all have a responsibility to promote a healthy lifestyle -- designers, modeling agencies, editors, and the organizations that oversee the fashion industry. We can't let a tiny group of editors make us afraid of doing what's right.

We have to set an image that is healthy for all women, something real and beautiful. We have to quit passing the buck and finally put an end to this unhealthy trend. And we have to make those who do it in the name of fashion ask themselves, "should fashion kill?"