Maybe they can’t smile and do the model walk at the same time. It’s hard- you put your right foot to the left of your left foot, then your left foot to the right of your right foot, and so on. And in spike heels no less.
If you were on their starvation diet, you wouldn’t smile either.
If you had to strut the catwalk wearing an outlandish gown and a weird headgear while exposing your painfully skinny butt before a gaggle of fashion reporters no one cares about, while hundreds of cameras flash on your face, and in the end have to kiss the hairy designer whose nightmare it is you are wearing, you’d be sour, too.
Might I also suggest that the aloof look lends itself to an air of superiority. Hollister, American Eagle, and the like receive a lot of business by appearing that they’re better than you.
Does anyone other than Right Said Fred actually call it a “catwalk”? I’ve always heard “runway”.
I had a neighbor who was a runway model and she called it a runway.
If the models paraded around on a catwalk, the viewing angle (for the outfits, anyway) would be pretty lousy.
And the documentary The September Issue. The September Issue is a few months in the life of Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue. In The Devil Wears Prada Meryl Streep plays a character that is generally accepted to be Anna. The movie and the documentary (if you’re into documentaries) go hand in hand.
…so sexy, I hurled…
The “aloof look” has been standard practice for a long time.
In The Caine Mutiny (Herman Wouk’s novel published in 1952), one of the officers becomes obsessed with a magazine photo of a model who is described as having a haughty, disdainful look “as though someone had just offered her a fish to hold.” 
It’s a great movie but if there was a good defence of the industry in there I missed it. There is undoubtedly an “explanation” but I don’t know about “good defence”.
I get the catwalk thing but what I don’t understand is why they don’t have wedding dress models smile, even in print campaigns. I see them and think how uncomfortable her dress must be and how miserable she is to be getting married. I know it sure would make me want to buy the dress.
The Unsmiling Fashion Model is what originally drove me to start enjoying Japanese (and later, other Asian) women. When I first got online, I naturally went looking for photos of pretty women whose names I knew … and they always looked so grim. Then I accidentally stumbled across photos of Japanese models, and I noticed that they were always smiling. That alone made them look so much more attractive to me.
Not have a full meal in eight years would make anyone stop smiling.
A model can only eat so many cotton balls dipped in orange juice before she dreams of a juicy steak.
Fashion shows are about fashion. THE CLOTHES. STOP LOOKING AT THE GIRLS!
Really, you’re not supposed to really notice them. They living mannequins. Ever notice how sometimes their hair and make up are all the same.
They are there to show how the clothing moves, when the person wearing it moves. Nobody, but NOBODY is looking at the models.
(unless it is the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show but that’s not really a fashion show)
But why? Why would anyone - other than those actually making money selling the stuff - care?
EDIT: My question was pretty much answered. I should have read on before posting.
yeah, my first thought when i read Doggo’s post was this little speech from that movie:
Related question.
Why do people like things I don’t?
There are countless magazines and some dedicated tv channels to things I don’t like.
Tell me why these most trivial of human activities receive so much attention, please.
Off topic, but I watched a YouTube interview of Tim Gunn (because he’s always first in my mind), Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia and Michael Kors done about two years ago, about the development and success of Project Runway. One thing the Orange One said sort of struck me - something like PR has taught people that every piece of clothing they wear, the tie the put on, the yoga pants, etc, was designed by someone. Someone had to agonize about which fabrics to use, what colors to match, how wide to make a tie.
On last week’s PR about two of the top three designs Kors said, “That would be on a discount rack somewhere. But you DID make it into the stores, so that’s good. It didn’t sell for full price, though.” And those were the winning designs for the sportswear challenge.
My personal opinion of runway models aspect and posing is that this is what you’re supposed to imagine yourself as when you wear the garment. Sleek, fashionable, better than every other mortal around you because you’re wearing such spectacular clothes.
StG
Have you noticed that this doesn’t apply to catalog models or other types of modeling that is directly marketed to consumers? The stuff on the runway is supposed to show the designer’s ideas, not actually be what would be sold in stores. So the focus really is on what the designer did, and not the models.
I learned this from Project Runway, myself.
That said, I have noticed that, when American’s try to sell sexy, smiling is much less common. There seems to be this dividing line between warm and sexy that cannot be crossed. That is what I notice that is different in East Asian cultures. You’ll see more smiling in, say, boob pics.