Luxury Fashion And India’s Sizing Reset

“India’s ‘Mounjaro brides’: weight-loss injections become part of pre-wedding preparation” is the title of an April 2026 article carried by Reuters. Doctors in India describe a rise in pre-wedding enquiries from brides, and some grooms, seeking GLP-1 drugs such as Mounjaro as a shortcut to a slimmer body before the ceremony, often against a backdrop of intense pressure around appearance. Indian weddings are a stage for aspiration and the story captures how strongly the ‘slimmer body’ operates as an aspirational ideal. It also prompts an examination of the current moment in fashion.

The Vogue Business Fall/Winter 2026 Size Inclusivity Report, covering 182 shows and 7,817 looks across the four major fashion capitals - New York, London, Milan, and Paris - found that only 0.3% of looks were presented on plus-size models (US size 14+), the lowest point since the publication began tracking size inclusivity three years ago. With 97.6% of all looks cast on straight-size models (US size 0-4) and only 2.1% on mid-size models (US size 6-12), larger bodies remained confined to the margins of luxury fashion’s most influential stages. A systemic narrowing is observed driven by entrenched sample-size practices as well as designer and stylist preferences. The reassertion of a thinner aesthetic on the runway is problematic because luxury imagery is quickly absorbed into media, commerce and broader culture. A 2021 Wall Street Journal article illustrates the point. It shared the findings of Facebook’s internal study, according to which 32 per cent of teen girls said they “felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse”.

When Fashion Imagery Becomes Advertising

Runway shows are typically treated as artistic or cultural expression rather than direct commercial advertising. But that distinction is increasingly blurred, particularly in luxury fashion, where a show sets the visual language for a season across the fashion landscape. Thus, though the runway may sit outside advertising law in a technical sense, the ethics of social responsibility and consumer safety that underpin advertising standards remain relevant.

Spain became the first country to enforce a ban on excessively thin models in 2006 when the Spanish Association of Fashion Designers decided to turn away underweight models with a BMI of less than 18 (UN health experts recommend a BMI of between 18.5 and 25 for women).

Italy followed soon with a similar restriction. Also, Article 12bis of the Code of Marketing Communication Self-Regulation titled ‘Safety’ provides that “market communication should not contain descriptions or representations that may lead consumers to be less cautious than usual or less watchful and responsible towards their own health and safety, including body images inspired by aesthetic models clearly associated with eating disorders that are harmful to health.”

With the declared aim of countering inaccessible ideals of beauty and fighting eating disorders, since 2017, models in France are required to provide a doctor’s certificate attesting to their overall physical health, with special regard to their body mass index (BMI), age and body shape. Agencies can face fines up to Euro 75,000 and imprisonment for using unhealthily thin models. Also, the words ‘retouched photograph’ (“photographie retouchée”) must be indicated “in a way which is accessible, legible and clearly distinguishable from the advertising or promotional message” on all photos for commercial use “where the physical appearance of the models has been digitally modified using image processing software, to make their shape thinner or thicker.” Fines in this regard may extend to Euro 37,500 or up to 30% of the costs of the advertising.

In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is an independent regulator of advertising across all media. Two advertisements by Zara were banned recently in August 2025 after the ASA found that shadows, styling and pose choices - including a slicked-back hairstyle that lent a gaunt appearance, legs made to look noticeably thin through lighting, and protruding collarbones made a focal feature of the image - rendered both advertisements irresponsible. Zara removed all flagged images, confirmed the models held medical certificates attesting to good health at the time of the shoot, and pointed to its compliance with Recommendation 3 of the 2007 ‘Fashioning a Healthy Future’ report by the UK Model Health Inquiry, which called for models to provide certificates from doctors with expertise in recognising eating disorders.

Indian Bodies Need Indian Data

In India, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) operates a self-regulatory framework - advertisements must conform to its Code for Self-Regulation which ensures that advertisements are fair, legal, decent and truthful, and that they do not mislead or harm consumers. That said, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (CPA) functions as the principal law governing misleading and false advertising of consumer-facing goods and services, enforced by the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA). The two frameworks increasingly operate in tandem - in a March 2024 press release, the CCPA asked ASCI to refer non-compliant advertisements that could potentially violate the CPA. As a result, breach of the ASCI Code may trigger formal regulatory action.

Most relevant to this article is the fact that a 2022 amendment to ASCI’s Code ensures that advertisements that deride an individual or group based on their body shape are prohibited. Also, the CCPA’s Misleading Advertisement Guidelines do not permit advertising that promotes negative body image among children.

Though these standards address overtly harmful messaging, they are less equipped to deal with the subtler problem of normalisation of one body type as the ideal. This is captured in the opening example on India’s ‘Mounjaro brides’ and associated reports of clinics offering GLP-1 based pre-wedding weight-loss packages.

More meaningfully, for brands with serious ambitions in India, the most significant shift may lie not in how bodies are represented, but in how they are measured. Indian body shapes do not map neatly onto imported Western size systems, and fit is far from culturally neutral. The INDIAsize project, conceptualised by the Ministry of Textiles in 2018 and implemented by the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), is India’s first large-scale attempt to create standardised size charts grounded in Indian anthropometric data. Using 3D whole-body scanning, the project captured measurements from over 26,000 individuals aged 15 and above across the country. The result was a scientifically developed sizing framework reflecting India’s body diversity, culminating in 27 size charts -13 for women and 14 for men - across three height groups and five body shapes, released as the INDIAsize Suite of 27 Body Size Charts in January 2026.

If adopted widely by industry, INDIAsize could improve fit, reduce consumer frustration, and make garment design more responsive to Indian bodies rather than imported standards. The proposed ‘IN Tag’, as a distinct Indian sizing identifier, could also strengthen India’s position in the global fashion and retail market. It also offers a different way of thinking about inclusion - not merely exhibited on the runway or promised in advertising, but embedded in design, standardisation, and everyday industry practice.

Conclusion

Contemporary preferences around body shape are, in historical terms, relatively recent. From the late Stone Age Venus of Willendorf and ancient Greek statues of Aphrodite to Botticelli’s 15^th century painting ‘Birth of Venus’, and closer home, Raja Ravi Varma’s (among the greatest painters in Indian art) portrayal of Indian women in the late 19^th century, female beauty has been imagined in forms far removed from today’s homogenised aesthetic.

But history also reminds that ideals evolve over time. The most enduring luxury houses have always shaped culture rather than merely reflected it and one hopes that fashion will make room for bodies that are healthy, confident and varied.

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