New law bans underage models

Following the footsteps of Madrid and Milan, London Fashion Week designers will no longer be able to use girls under the age of 16. The controversy surrounding the size zero debate has led for new legislation where young girls and the ultra-thin are banned from photo shoots and catwalks. The new age limit will mean that teenagers aspiring to be the new Kate Moss, Lily Col e or Naomi Campbell, who all began modelling at 14 or 15, will no longer be used to sell clothes.

However, fashion bosses have decided not to ban size zero models, who have sparked accusations that those, particularly the young, who seek to emulate them end up with eating disorders. Size zero is generally attributed to a body mass index of 18 or below.

The new guidelines will come as part of the independent report into the 'size zero' crisis, according to The Observer. The inquiry, under Labour peer Baroness Kingsmill, follows the death last year of two South American models working on the international circuit, one from anorexia and the other from malnutrition.

Kingsmill's Model Health Inquiry will release an interim report on Wednesday which also recommends better health and nutritional advice for models, improving ways in which they can complain about their working conditions and education for models' agents about eating disorders. The British Fashion Council, the industry's trade body which commissioned the inquiry, has indicated that it will accept and implement the recommendations.