The spring-summer catwalk season of 2009 may not have been a landmark month for many, but it is firmly etched into the mind of Victoire Dauxerre. Then 18, she had been labelled one of the most successful 20 models at Paris Fashion Week, booked for couture powerhouses from Dior to Chanel, Valentino to Alexander McQueen and Balenciaga to Givenchy, and Italian Vogue had called to ask her to be the face of their next cover. Beneath the glamour, however, she was crumbling.
In the eight months that she had been modelling, the 5ft 10in Parisienne had dropped from a size eight to a size two. What started as a desire to meet the standards of the modelling industry had turned into a full-blown eating disorder; she was surviving solely on apples and liquids, and using laxatives and enemas on a daily basis to keep her weight down to 7st. Her hair was brittle and falling out. Her periods had stopped. She was hallucinating and passing out. Her skeleton, she later found out, was akin to that of a 70-year-old. “It was the worst time of my life,” she says. “I was so lonely. Everyone loved me because I was so skinny. I know it’s all relative - I was complaining because I was travelling all the time in five-star hotels and wearing Dior. I lost all my friends when I was doing that. But you don’t belong to yourself any more, either.”
After months of behaving like a “robot”, turning up to castings barely functional because of hunger, and exhausted from walking everywhere to burn calories instead of taking cabs, enough was enough: Dauxerre quit the industry, beginning by saying no to that Vogue cover. She started eating. But her issues remained unresolved. “When I stopped [modelling], I felt so lonely and ashamed, because I hated my body. I also felt like I’d failed as a model. “I cried all the time and didn’t leave my room. I was imprisoned in my body. I became a size 12, after being a size two, and I felt fat. I wanted to die because I wanted to kill the loneliness and the pain. I wanted everything to disappear.”
At the age of 18, Dauxerre tried to kill herself. Her battle with anorexia, alongside her struggle to cope with the pressures of the modelling world, had become too much. She woke up in a hospital, surrounded by her family, and was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic for three months. Six years on, Dauxerre is 24 and her book Size Zero, telling of her experiences, has been a big hit in France. “It is the book I would have loved to read before I signed modelling contracts,” she explains. “I had no idea what it would be like. Now I want to protect girls who want to [model], because it can be really dangerous.”
Dauxerre entirely blames the modelling industry for her eating disorder. Before she was scouted aged 17, she says she had no body image issues and was a slim size eight. “[My agency] said, ‘You have to be a size two if you want work’,” she says, shaking her head in anger. “I wanted to fit into the clothes, so I had to lose 22lb [9.9kg], which is a lot. But they never tell you that you have to lose weight. They encourage you by calling you a professional when you are thinner. They want you down to the bone.
“I thought it was temporary, but at some point I became frightened to gain weight. The anorexia had a hold of me. Today I know it’s stupid, and that’s why they don’t scout girls in their twenties. You’d be like, ‘I don’t want to ruin my health or body for you.’ They deliberately scout you when you’re 16, 17. I think it’s unfair and dangerous to do that. Of course you’re naive and can be manipulated, because you’re a little girl surrounded by men who can take advantage of you. They ask you to meet insane criteria, and you can’t be healthy when you are 5ft 10in and a size zero.”
Dauxerre is now only involved in the industry when it comes to campaigning against the use of unhealthy models. She graduated from LAMDA and hopes to become an actress, but still gets furious when she talks about how the modelling industry exploits girls. The use of teenage models is as prevalent as ever, with the likes of Stranger Things’ 13-year-old star, Millie Bobby Brown, fronting a new advertising campaign. “What can we do about it?” says Dauxerre. “I do not think women should be represented by young girls, famous or not. They can do catwalks for teenagers, but they shouldn’t represent Chanel.”
She explains that, for her, the pressure to lose weight was often heightened because designers based their collections on a 15-year-old model’s shape. “Models are like clothes hangers. Designers want them that size so they don’t have to make any alterations to the clothes. I think they must hate women to make them feel they have to be this size. They take away their femininity.”
There has been a lot of talk about catwalk shows only using models with healthy BMIs, and in France a law was passed in 2015 to enforce that. But Dauxerre does not think anything has changed. “It’s even worse,” she says darkly. “Girls are skinnier and skinnier. French law is apparently less powerful than designers in France because nothing has changed. You have exceptions like Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, but they were stars before they modelled, so it doesn’t really count.”
She hopes that people will follow the example of French designer Agnes B, who only uses models who are over 18 and at least a size 8. “If designers still want 5ft 10in models, then size 10 is slim and healthy and girls can eat properly,” says Dauxerre, who is now a size 10 herself. Sadly, the eating disorder has left its mark on her - “I don’t like seeing myself in pictures, and I’m afraid of putting on weight. I’m anxious about it. I still have weight ‘goals’.” But she is desperate to use her story to warn others of the industry’s perils. “I’m angry because it destroys many people; girls both in the industry and in wider society. We are in 2017 - they should promote strong, healthy and beautiful women. But it’s still, ‘We want to see your bones’ and ‘You don’t have the right to smile or talk.’ The modelling industry diminishes women and it needs to stop.”
