Berlin Fashion Week Features Pieces Made for and Modeled by Dwarfs

(Image © Emily Sullivan Sanford)

It’s been a good week in the media for dwarfs. Not only did Peter Dinklage’s Emmy win allow for him to speak out once again against bullying, but Fashion Week just ended in the city I call home and I couldn’t help but squeal a little “OMG!” at seeing history being made.

With her collection “At Eye Level,” Berlin-based designer Sema Gedik presented clothes made for and modeled by Laura Christ, Mick Mehnert, Eva Ehrmann and others with dwarfism. Gedik was inspired to do so after observing the difficulty of finding clothes that fit—not to mention stylish ones—faced by her cousin Funda, who has achondroplasia. That the fashion industry has never seemed interested in offering dwarfs clothing made for their bodies imbued Gedik with “an intense feeling of injustice.” She tells Berlin’s Tageszeitung, “Fashion should not be restricted by social conventions.”

But those restrictions are there, which is why she reports being surprised that she even managed to get the project off the ground and into Fashion Week. Indeed, a feature in The Washington Post earlier this year about the work of American designer Kathy D. Woods did little to help her kickstarter campaign to fund her line of clothes for fellow dwarfs. The campaign ended up falling far short of its goal.

El Mundo has declared Gedik’s debut “a revolution,” but the revolution is arguably the easiest step for any social justice movement. The trick is getting the new ideas to stick. Distributors argue that dwarf clientele wield too little purchase power to be worth investing in due to their small numbers. Gedik rebuffs this claim, pointing out that the number of women with typical catwalk-like measurements also constitutes a minority of consumers.

Ever since New York Fashion Week featured a handful of disabled models, some cultural critics have wondered whether the ulterior motive of the world of haute couture is to exploit those who stand out for shock value. After all, Francis Bacon’s truism that “there is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion” both honors diversity and draws inordinate attention to an individual’s Otherness at the expense of anything else they may offer or need. Which is perhaps why my excitement and pride at Gedik’s breakthrough is tempered by a slightly more cynical It’s about time.

Gedik is adamant that her goal is to finally and fiercely open up the fashion market to dwarf consumers. “This is only the first step,” she insists. But there is a risk that the opening will close as soon as the novelty wears off. The final step in the path to justice will be to see work like Gedik’s so often that all that’s worthy of note is the choice of colors.

Tags: Auf Augenhöhe, Beauty, Berlin Fashion Week, Disabled Access, Dwarf, Dwarfism, Fashion, Sema Gedik