A lot of the blame for unrealistic expectations of how women's bodies should look gets heaped onto the fashion industry's bony shoulders. So it's really, really encouraging to see a fashionable slap back.
The Escape to Reality Foundation is a group of St. Louis women who share a love of fashion and a desire to talk back to the industry's pressure on women and girls to be thin, young and white.
Next month, ETR is holding a fashion show at St. Louis University, Destination: Design!, which will feature nine designers and models who are meant to represent the way women really look -- models of different ages, sizes and ethnicities. Every penny of the proceeds go to funding treatment scholarships for people with eating disorders. (Check back with us for more on that as we get closer.)
If you want to pitch in sooner, though, shop at Ziezo in the Loop at 6394 Delmar Boulevard Friday afternoon. Between 4 and 8 p.m., models will be strutting around in the latest rags for spring, purchases will enter you into prize drawings, and 20 percent of all the store's profits will go to the ETR Foundation.