PARIS, Sept 15, 2006 (AFP) - The shape and size of fashion models cannot be regulated, the head of the French couture federation has said, after models deemed too skinny were reportedly banned from the catwalk in Spain.

Didier Grumbach, president of the couture federation and chamber of haute couture, told AFP late Thursday that "everyone would laugh" if France attempted to follow suit.

Excessively thin models have been barred from a major Madrid fashion show later this month for fear they could send the wrong message to young Spanish girls, local media reported last week.

Madrid's regional government, which is co-financing the Pasarela Cibeles, has vetoed around a third of the models who took part in last year's show because they weigh too little.

"That worries me," Grumbach commented: "We are not going to regulate in tastes and colours."

"If Jean Paul Gaultier wants to take fat people for his catwalk shows, we are not going to stop him.

"When (John) Galliano puts on the catwalk people who are not pretty pretty, no one thinks to reproach him," he added.

In two weeks' time, Paris takes over the fashion baton from New York and Milan, staging a packed week of women's ready-to-wear shows for spring-summer 2007 by some of the biggest designers in the fashion world.

"It's for the designer to decide what type of model he needs... that cannot be regulated," Grumbach added.

Copyright AFP

Subject: French news