The Vogue Factor: Sacked Austalian Vogue editor Kirstie Clements writes books about fashion industry claiming models starve and eat tissues to stay full

The Vogue Factor: Sacked Austalian Vogue editor Kirstie Clements writes books about fashion industry claiming models starve and eat tissues to stay full

• The Vogue Factor, by Kirstie Clements, former editor of Australian Vogue
• Clements says models eat tissues to stay full and starve themselves for days
• She was fired in May 2012 after 25 years at the magazine
  

By Martha De Lacey

PUBLISHED: 12:46 EST, 2 April 2013 | UPDATED: 12:47 EST, 2 April 2013

For those who puzzle over how supermodels stay so whippet thin, a former Vogue editor has lifted the lid on the horrific lengths some go to to maintain their wispy waistlines and cut-glass hipbones.

Kirstie Clements, sensationally fired from her role as editor of Australian Vogue last May, has written a tell-all book about the fashion industry, claiming some models eat tissue paper to feel full, starve themselves for days on end, spend frequent stints on hospital drips, and are often so weak with hunger they struggle to keep their eyes open.

The Vogue Factor also explains that within the fashion world there is 'thin', and then there is 'Paris thin' - a term that describes the size of a model who has starved their already fragile body down two dress sizes in order to be cast in big oversea shows.

Kirstie Clements' book, The Vogue Factor, is a tell-all expose of the fashion industry, and the lengths some models go to to stay thin

In her controversial tome, Clements says she once spent three days on a shoot with a model who didn't see her eat a single meal - and that on the final day she could barely stand or keep her eyes open.

She also reveals how an Russian model once told her that her flat mate was a 'fit' model - a model whose body is used by top designers for clothes-fittings - and therefore spent lots of time on a drip.

Clements spent 25 years at Australian Vogue - her book's subhead is 'from front desk to editor' - and steered the ship for 13 of them.

Her departure was sudden - she was called to a meeting and dismissed, forced to clean her office and leave without bidding farewell to her staff - and she was replaced quickly by Edwina McCann, editor of Harper's Bazaar.

Clements describes her sacking simply as a 'regime change' that was part and parcel of the dramatic Vogue narrative, but some critics believe the new book - her first - is her way of exacting revenge on the Rupert Murdoch-owned title.

Samantha Cameron watches painfully-thin Chloe Memisevic walk for Erdem at London Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2011,  left, and former Australian Vogue editor Kirstie Clements, right