Liverpool Fashion Week models banned from sunbeds

Models who use sunbeds will not be welcome at Liverpool Fashion Week

Liverpool Fashion Week has banned sunbed-using models in an effort to halt the trend for tanning.

Models will have to sign a pledge not to use sunbeds during or after the show, organisers say.

The decision was made following a survey suggested half of 15 to 17-year-olds in the city had used sunbeds, compared to 11% nationally.

The Sunbed Association said it was an "outrageous publicity stunt".

Liverpool Fashion Week organiser Amanda Moss said the health and wellbeing of models was "of paramount importance".

'Constant pressure'

Ms Moss said Liverpool Fashion Week, which takes place from 14 to 19 October, was the first fashion week to impose a complete ban on sunbed-using models.

"We hope that by showing how gorgeous our models look at this year's Liverpool Fashion Week, we will help sunbed users in the city realise they don't need to get on the beds to look great," she said.

Last year Ms Moss hit out at fake tan and eyelashes, saying the "beauty pageant" look detracted from the "seriousness of what Liverpool fashion is".

Gary Lipman, chairman of the Sunbed Association, said he welcomed "all efforts to ensure responsible tanning" but accused Ms Moss of courting publicity.

"The decision by the organisers of Liverpool Fashion Week to deny models the opportunity to work in these difficult economic times because of their freedom of choice to use sunbeds, is really quite outrageous as a publicity stunt, which London Fashion Week also tried a couple of years ago," he said.

"In my opinion, for a publicity stunt it would actually have been more appropriate to ban models from wearing high heels, which poses more of a health hazard than responsible sunbed use."

Model Victoria Jane Davies, 31, from Liverpool, said there was a "constant pressure to be tanned" in the city.

"I started using the sunbeds from a young age, once or twice a week to ensure I looked and felt good," she said.

"It's only as I've got older that my skin started to show the damaging effects."