Isabelle Caro

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I found many shocking stories about the alarming truth of how life threatening the disease anorexia nervosa can be, yet the story of Isabelle Caro really stood out and highlighted the devastating effects of the disease.


Who was she ?

•  Isabelle Caro was a french model born on the 12 September 1982 sadly she passed away on the 17th November 2001. 
• She hit the headlines for her painfully thin figure, and soon became a symbol to promote the fight against anorexia. 
• Her most famous yet hugely controversial advertising campaign showed how the disease had savaged her body. Posters featuring her emaciated skeletal body were displayed the night before fashion week began in Milan. 
• It send shockwaves through the modelling and fashion industry frequently scrutinised for failing to keep their models  at a healthy weight and for their careless attitude towards eating disorders

The poster


Shot by the Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani. It was designed to be a hard-hitting compaign, that would really claw at the fashion and modelling industry. Oliviero Toscani said  "Looking at my ad, girls with anorexia would say to themselves that they have to stop dieting.When you do something extreme, there are always people who oppose it. 
It shouldn't be the photos that shock, but the reality."

The posters were banned by the Italian advertising watchdog but the images went viral online, sparking debate just months after the deaths of two prominent Latin American models.

Her death and the cause...

Isabelle had struggled with anorexia since the young age of 13, and was said to be in fear of ever getting bigger or taller. In interviews she also mention that she had a very troubled childhood with a mother who was extremely protective. 

She died on 17 November after returning to France from a job in Tokyo.

The exact cause of death is not known but she was treated in hospital for a fortnight with an acute respiratory disease after returning from Japan. Her family held a private funeral in Paris. Referring to Caro's anorexia, Daniele Dubreuil-Prevot, her long-time acting instructor, said the French model "had been sick for a long time".

Vincent Bigler, a Swiss singer who became a close friend of Caro, said that Caro had been determined to help women like her who suffered from eating disorders. 

"She was this thin girl with a fragile voice but inside she was amazingly strong," he said. "She was always very close to people like her. She would give out her phone number to anyone who wanted to talk about eating disorders. She even put her number on her blog. On her birthday this year she invited all her followers and fans to her party. That was the kind of person she was. She was very open-minded."

But Caro had always rebuffed such criticism, saying she believed most young girls would be repulsed and not encouraged by the poster campaign. 

"My anorexia causes death," she explained in an interview three years ago. "It is everything but beauty, the complete opposite. It is an unvarnished photo, without make-up. The message is clear – I have psoriasis, a pigeon chest, and the body of an elderly person."

Yet despite her public determination to combat anorexia, Caro still struggled to fully overcome the disease. At the time of the campaign she weighed just 29 kilograms and had fallen into a coma the previous year. 

Determined to show the dangers of the disease, Caro has featured on many interviews and tv shows to broadcast her views and show herself to the world, giving her the nickname of "the living face of anorexia". 

Below I have featured her interview on the Jessica Simpson show in which she stated her weight had risen to 39 kilograms, yet she still looks painfully thin, even skeletal.  Interstingly during the interview she told Jessica that she when she had started her modelling career, she was instructed to lose 10 kilograms, and despite her obviously dangerously low weight, she had never been told by an agency to put on weight.

'I want to recover because I love life and the riches of the universe. I want to show young people how dangerous this illness is.' - Isabelle Caro