Model Edie Campbell calls for designers to provide private changing rooms at fashion shows

London Fashion Week is well underway with hundreds of models gracing the runway for SS19. But amidst the action, Edie Campbell has urged shows to provide models with private changing room facilities.

Yesterday, the model – who has worked for the likes of Chanel, Burberry and Alexander McQueen – described changing in front of people as “uncomfortable” and “humiliating” on BBC Radio 4.

The 27-year-old has worked in the industry for the past twelve years so has grown accustomed to the serious lack of privacy that comes hand-in-hand being a model.

“Backstage areas are very busy, there’s a lot of people there, from every part of the production of putting on a fashion show: hair and makeup, stylists, PR, the press themselves, caterers, production assistants, everyone that you can imagine,” she revealed.

But a recent experience at New York Fashion Week proved to be an eye-opener for the model, as she noticed designers had started to install private changing areas.

“It was at that moment that I realised how bizarre and uncomfortable it was, and in a way humiliating, to have previously been encouraged to change, or been forced to change, in front of everyone,” she said. “I think it adds to a much broader question of a dehumanisation of the model and this kind of objectification that is a symptom of a bigger problem.”

But it’s not the first time Campbell has addressed the issue, as she praised designer label Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini back in February for providing models with private changing areas at Milan Fashion Week.

Last year, the model further emphasised that there is “no line between the personal and the professional” in an open letter on the sexual assault prevalent in the industry.

In the candid piece, the model wrote: “Work, to me, does not look like work: I undress in front of the people I work with, I travel with these people, I get drunk with them, they ask me who I’m shagging, we tell stories, we giggle, we gossip and we become part of ‘the gang’. It’s a school trip for all ages.”

Campbell continued, “There needs to be boundaries. There must be limits to the creative process, given the potential human cost. Fashion is great when it celebrates the people involved in the creative process, not when it destroys them. The work should not become more important than the people who are involved in it.”

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