HAVING obtained tickets to the Bournemouth Art Institute's yearly showcase of students' fashions designs, I was delighted to go along and pretend I was part of the "glamorous" world surrounding fashion shows.

Disappointingly we didn't get seats on the front row, so I couldn't sit there, as I'd seen on TV, clipboard in hand, soaking up the atmosphere with my legs crossed while emanating an air of boredom and, at the same time, great importance.

Nevertheless, we had a good view, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the weird and the wonderful paraded down the lavish catwalks, commenting "knowingly" on each new collection, with a pout and a subtle head nod.

But while the event was fun (for me), important (for the students) and impressive for anyone else, it left a slight feeling of unease in the pit of my (slightly paunchy) tummy, due simply to the emaciated appearance of the professional models used.

Carted down from London each year just for the occasion, I had known that these girls were "proper" models, attached to many famous agencies, and therefore wouldn't be like "normal" girls.

What I hadn't expected were the gaunt skeletons that were strutting down in front of me, fantastic designs literally hanging off their all-too-apparent bones.

Having seen such things on television and in magazines, I shouldn't really have been too surprised but I was, and it left an indelible impression.

How can we, a supposedly civil society, still allow this appalling degradation of the human form to continue?

How on earth do we not even raise an eyebrow when some over-paid executive tells a seven-stone model she still needs to lose a few pounds from her derriere? Just how is this acceptable?

Yes, there has, over the last decade, been a supposed outcry in the media about the perceived image of women, particularly in fashion, and there was a bit of a storm when severely malnourished young girls started to appear as the top designers' clothes horse of choice the "heroin chic" period.

And so the average weight of these poor things went up a bit to about six stone instead of five.

Any excuses that this shallow, self-obsessed industry provides must be ignored.

If all models need to be the same size in order that the clothes always fit, let them all be size 12!

It is clear from a quick glance at the catwalk that an eating disorder is far from a bar to a successful career in modelling it is a pre-requisite. And no truly civilised society should ever allow that to be the case.