With designers competing for the best reactions to their collections during fashion week, tension is high because fashion isn’t funny business!

Models fashion themselves to look their best, as do many people from London, ensuring that their beauty doesn’t detract from the clothing line they’re actually wearing. These catwalk stars go to great lengths to have the right body tone, movement and face. Many undergo strict dietary and exercise regimes, not to mention cosmetic and dentistry treatments, such as:

• Facial rejuvenation and skin toning.
• Botox therapy.
• Dental and facial reconstruction.
• Lip and facial lifts.
• Smile makeovers.
• Vaser liposuction.

However, we often don’t consider the causes that these fashion shows support, and perhaps if we did, we’d see the seriousness of it all. Flashed around centre stage and in the audience are not only the world’s talented fashion designers, but also sponsors of their creations.

For example, large companies like Coke may support cancer awareness as part of their charitable giving or corporate responsibility. Fabrics specially selected to envelope models and engage lookers-on may be flowing red, the healthy humanity of the models being a stark contrast to the cancerous disease that affects so many. Models, although doll-like in their near-perfection, are human too with families where cancer may occur.

Do we really think in these terms, though, when the lights are flashing, the music’s playing and the models are strutting? No, we may not think of cancer and the meaning thereof. We’re distracted, perhaps by the essence of it all, maybe by the excitement, or just being there. Momentarily, we may be struck with a total lack of connection to the cause. Until a moment of humanity, like a smile or emotion, touches us to remind us why we’re all there after all.