Models Fall Through Fashion Week. Dangerous Job?

At Dennis Basso's show this week, a model took a major tumble. The rule of the thumb is to pick yourself up, laugh it off and cry later, but some models have started avoiding the risk altogether. Photo by: AP/Getty



It's been a bad seven days for a handful of models at New York Fashion Week. At least six designer shows were overshadowed by slips, trips and spills on the catwalk. Naeem Khan, Richard Chai and Y-3 and all featured surprise mis-steps. But the biggest falls caught on film, were on Dennis Basso's runway and at Heart Truth's Red Dress Collection celebrity show, where both Christie Brinkley and Rose McGowan lost their footing.

See more star power from the 2012 Heart Truth Red Dress runway.

The rule of the thumb is to pick yourself up, laugh it off and cry later, but some models have started avoiding the risk altogether.

A few years back, three women turned down the chance to walk in GaGa's Armadillo platforms at an Alexander McQueen show. The likelihood of tumbling in those oddly shapped 10-inch heels wasn't worth the risk to model Abbey Ley Kershaw. "Hopefully [heel height] is going to come back down soon because health and safety regulations have got to come into play at some point," she said back in 2009.

But, in the past three years not much has changed. The ability to walk an invisible tightrope in draping fabric and foot stilts is still a requirement of the job. Inevitably slips happen, though some runway shows are perennial disaster areas.

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"I can tell you I've seen models fall mostly at Herve Leger," says Fashionista's Executive Editor Leah Chernikoff. "The dresses are so tight and the floors are so slippery, it's model dominos." In 2009, the brains behind the band-aid dresses, came under scrutiny after four models fell down in one show; however none of the models reported serious injuries.

Conspiracy theorists wonder if some designers aim for a tumble. It's those candid moments captured on camera that grab attention from news outlets and get replayed in the greatest hits version of each season's fashion week.

On the flip-side, it doesn't speak well for a look, when a trained professional can't wear it for twenty seconds with out falling.


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