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[DANCE MUSIC PLAYING]
-Welcome to "Fashion Week Internationale," the show that
reports on the most fabulous fashion weeks in the world,
and the culture and politics behind them.
This time, we're in the party capital of the Middle East--
Tel Aviv.
-[SPEAKING HEBREW]
-I wanna go home.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
-We are in Israel for Tel Aviv's second
fashion week in 30 years.
But had it been scheduled any later, it
may not have happened.
No sooner had the last model left the runway, the conflict
between Israel and Palestine escalated to the worst it's
been in recent history, with Tel Aviv's Iron Dome being
breached for the first time by missiles sent from Gaza.
-Tel Aviv came under rocket attack for the
first time in 21 years.
Hamas fired over 300 rockets at Israel in 24 hours.
-Tel Aviv is the economic center of Israel, and secular
tourist haven.
Known for it's 24-hour party lifestyle and thriving gay
scene, it's not hard to see why it's gained a reputation
as the home of hedonism in the holy land.
The event kicked off with a press junket where the
president of Tel Aviv fashion week fielded questions from
local and foreign press.
-Body mass index, or BMI, is the globally accepted method
for estimating human body fat based on an individual's
weight and height, and a BMI of below 18.5 is considered
underweight.
The law is contentious because BMI is a general measurement
and doesn't take things like genetics or race into account.
The opening show was none other than Italian fashion
house Moschino.
I was intrigued to hear what such a big designer would
think of the law.
-Moschino being such a stalwart in this fashion
industry, you know, you work with the best models, the
biggest faces in the industry.
Somewhere like this that maybe next year they're not going to
be able to work with the international standard of
models because of their BMI law.
What do you think about that?
BILL SHAPIRO: Fashion is about making women
feel cool and beautiful.
You know, fashion sells a dream, and everything's
supposed to look as beautiful as possible, but that doesn't
necessarily mean ill, obviously.
-Cool and beautiful.
I couldn't agree more, but couldn't help but wonder how
the global fashion industry would be affected if
legislation was passed worldwide.
The very makeup of high fashion would be impacted.
-You're going to be the first fashion week whose size of the
model is dictated by law.
How does that make you feel?
-How can you hope to compete with an international
aesthetic standard of how models should look if you're
not allowed to use that look anymore?
-I could understand that [INAUDIBLE]
didn't want his fashion week to be engulfed in an argument
about anorexic models, but to say it doesn't matter just
sounded obtuse, especially given the facts.
-Across town, there was another fashion event being
held by people who think this matters very much.
Simply U, a model agency that strictly represents girls with
a healthy BMI, was having a dinner during the fashion week
to commiserate its models for being too overweight for
current catwalk standards.
Simply U was founded by Adi Barkan, an Israeli fashion
photographer, model agent, and one-time publisher of racy
magazine, Bikini.
-[SPEAKING HEBREW]
-Adi's career took a u-turn in the 90s when a model he
advised to lose a few pounds consequently almost starved
herself to death.
-Since then, Adi has put all his energy into pushing
through legislation stating that models with a BMI under
18.5 will not be able to work, and Photoshopped advertising
images must carry a disclaimer.
-[SPEAKING HEBREW]
-Adi believes that by targeting the fashion industry
through how they can advertise, he's
got them by the balls.
If they breach the code, the lose money.
-Adi Barkan is not the only Israeli photographer to broach
social issues with his work.
We went to meet another guy who creates such controversial
imagery we had to seek him out in a concealed, underground
shoot location.
-Lior Nordman had tongues wagging when he did a shoot
for fashion magazine "BelleMode," in which he
parodied a news story about segregation on public buses.
Women face harassment unless they sit at the back of
certain buses serving ultra-orthodox communities,
who believe there should be no public
contact between the sexes.
He went on to confront further religious and political taboos
in his ongoing series, "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?,"
which features characters of different religions and same
genders getting on really rather well together.
-Even though it had been fun, there were definitely some
moments where I wondered if this was the kind of thing
that gets a fatwa put on your head.
There was something a bit carpe diem about Lior's
attitude to sensationalizing such a situation.
But upon my arrival back in fashion week, it seemed Lior
wasn't the only one putting his own spin on the conflict.
-Before we knew it, it was the end of the two day long
fashion week.
Mr. Moschino had said fashion week was about selling a
dream, but in this case, it felt like Tel Aviv fashion
week was about selling Tel Aviv.
Despite its reputation as a liberal, European-style city,
its location means most people approach it with caution.
And if any creative industry were to thrive, it needs to be
regarded differently.
And unfortunately, the day after the fashion week
finished, something happened that showed just why that is.
The Israeli defense force launched something called
Operation Pillar of Defense to eliminate militants and
weapons sites in the Gaza Strip, which began by
assassinating Hamas military chief, Ahmed al-Jabari, in a
targeted missile attack in Gaza City.
Suddenly, the bomb hats didn't feel so funny.
The next morning, we were hanging out on a test shoot
with some of girls from Adi Barkan's agency.
Our original plan had been to spend some time with female
soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force, but after
launching Operation Pillar of Defense, they cancelled.
The IDF is unique in that it's the only army in the world
that requires national service to be completed by girls.
To the delight of weird war nerds across the world, the
IDF is full of girls like this.
No one is exempt, not even bona fide supermodels.
-Esti Ginzburg, 19-year-old Israeli supermodel, recently
decided, unlike some other Israeli celebrities, to not
avoid serving her obligatory two years of military service.
ESTI GINZBURG: If you live in this country, and you grow up
in this country, then you have to serve and do the minimum.
It's the values that I grew up on.
And I always knew that I'm going to go in, and even tough
it's hard, it's what I need to do.
-As a result, the girls of the IDF have become
something of a fetish.
Whole websites are dedicated to the hot girls of the IDF.
And I'd been super excited about learning how to do this
from a hot tank instructor.
-But as the day wore on, it became clear that there was a
steady escalation of violence in Gaza.
The reality of being a part of one of the most heavily
engaged armies in the world quickly eclipses any
superficial fantasies about girls with guns.
We shared a taxi home with Margo, one of the models from
the agency.
The driver seemed agitated.
The latest news on the radio explained why.
-[SPEAKING HEBREW]
-[SPEAKING HEBREW]
-As we drove back into the center of Tel Aviv, everything
seemed eerily normal.
There were no signs of anyone freaking out in the streets.
But we thought we'd better head back to the apartment and
get the facts.
Things weren't looking good.
Hamas said, Israel had opened the gates of hell, so we're
retaliating.
For the first time since the Gulf War in 1991, Tel Aviv
residents were hearing the whine of air raid sirens,
warning them to take cover from incoming missiles.
-[SPEAKING HEBREW]
-The Israeli Air Force pounded dozens of targets in Gaza,
including missile storage facilities
and launching sites.
Among the weapons destroyed were rockets that could hit as
far as 25 miles into Israel.
Defense minister, Ehud Barak, has mobilized the first
reserve infantry units.
-55,000 Israeli troops were being mobilized along the
border, and among them, Margo's boyfriend.
That really brought the news home.
The foreign office was advising people to get out of
the country, but it was late, and we decided to sleep on it
and see what the morning looked like.
[AIR RAID SIRENS]
-Oh, you ***--
-I'd never heard an air raid siren before.
What you're meant to do is take shelter underground, not
stand out on the balcony like us, trying to spot the rocket
like some kind of firework display from hell.
-I'm googling like, what to do, siren, basement, Tel Aviv.
-Soon, people had returned to the streets from wherever
they'd sheltered and got on with whatever they'd been
doing before.
-Somebody's delivering pizza.
-It was as if nothing had happened.
Even on the beach a mere half mile from where the rocket had
smashed into the sea, friends played Frisbee, and dads did
Tai Chi with their kids.
None of this [INAUDIBLE] with the official foreign office
advice to get out now.
And as we made our way home to pack, I wish we'd
had more time here.
However, all our appointments had been cancelled, and there
was nothing we could do.
[MUSIC PLAYING]