Eli Lilly Sponsorship of Vogue World Draws Criticism
On Tuesday night in Milan, the fifth iteration of Vogue World overseen by Anna Wintour featured high-profile runway appearances from Gigi Hadid and Jennifer Lopez, alongside a corporate sponsorship by American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly that drew immediate criticism from eating disorder charities and academics.
The Partnership Behind the Milan Catwalk
Eli Lilly, manufacturer of weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and the Foundayo pill, was listed among the event credits as a fashion-adjacent sponsor for the Milan gathering. This follows the pharmaceutical company’s sponsorship of Vogue World in Hollywood in 2025 and the Met Gala livestream earlier that year, which featured a promotional video starring actor Patrick Schwarzenegger and the fashion brand Public School.
While the ongoing corporate partnership did not explicitly link Mounjaro or Foundayo to Vogue, the integration of high-fashion events with a weight-loss medication manufacturer sparked swift pushback. Charlotte Markey, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University and author of The Body Image book series, pointed out the implications of the branding synergy. “It suggests that thinness is once again being positioned very explicitly as something important that we should aspire to – and now something that can potentially be medically achieved,” Markey said. She added that merging fashion marketing with pharmaceutical marketing implies prescription medication is part of an aspirational lifestyle, normalizing the idea that changing a body medically is a simple beauty choice.
Industry Response and Cultural Impact
The collaboration also included a video published on the Vogue website titled Portrait of Progress. Produced by Vogue in partnership with Eli Lilly, the video juxtaposes pharmaceutical technologies with fashion manufacturing. A voiceover states that the company has been revolutionising health for 150 years, while a montage plays combining fashion and health clips. Lauren Downing Peters, an associate professor of fashion studies at Columbia College in Chicago and author of Fashion Before Plus Size, observed that the video links health directly as a precondition for creativity, demonstrating how normalized GLP-1 medications have become within both the fashion industry and culture at large.
Charities working with eating disorders voiced alarm over the messaging. Tom Quinn, director of external affairs at the eating disorder charity Beat, noted that the widespread use and advertising of GLP-1s are particularly attractive to vulnerable individuals. “Given that the fashion industry has at times been known to idealise and promote unrealistic body ideals, this event being sponsored by the manufacturer of Mounjaro is a problematic association,” Quinn said.
These concerns arrive against a backdrop of ongoing scrutiny regarding runway diversity and sizing. A report published by Vogue Business found that out of 9,038 looks presented across 198 womenswear shows in September 2025, 97.1% appeared on straight-size models measuring between a US size 0 and 4, while mid-size models accounted for 2% and plus-size or curve models represented just 0.9%. The widespread aesthetic use of GLP-1 medications is widely considered a contributing factor to this shift.
Despite the controversy surrounding the event’s corporate backing, this week’s Milan presentation included appearances by plus-size models Paloma Elsesser and Ashley Graham. None of the promotional materials distributed for the show made reference to thinness or weight-loss drugs.
*Disclaimer: The views and cultural analyses presented in this article are for informational and entertainment purposes only. Information regarding legal disputes or financial data is based on available public records.*