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Model, 14, dies after 13-hour fashion show

Photo credit: Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
Photo credit: Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved

From Harpers Bazaar UK

Russian model Vlada Dzyuba has died, aged 14, following a 13-hour catwalk show in China. Although the causes of death have not yet been confirmed, she is thought to have been suffering from meningitis and exhaustion.

The teenager was modelling during Shanghai Fashion Week when she collapsed as she waited for her next appearance. The Siberian Times reports that, despite her high temperature, she was too "scared" to ask for medical help beforehand because she didn't have medical insurance. After her collapse, she was taken to hospital where she spent the next two days in a coma.

Dzyuba was in China on three-month modelling assignment and was supposed to only be working three hours a week.

"No-one expected it to lead to such consequences," Elvira Zaitseva, head of Vlada's modeling agency Perm, told The Daily Mail. "We are now reaping what we have sown."

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Her mother was unable to travel to Shanghai before the teenager died.

“She was calling me, saying 'Mama, I am so tired. I so much want to sleep," Dzyuba told television programme NTV. “I didn't sleep myself and was calling her constantly, begging her to go to hospital."

The maltreatment of fashion models is a big industry issue. In September, luxury conglomerates LVMH and Kering agreed to a pledge whereby they promised not to use size zero women or anyone under the age of 16 to model their clothes. The charter pledged to make a dedicated psychologist or therapist available during working time and stipulated that models will also have to present a valid medical certificate to prove that they are fit for work.

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