One of the contestants is a woman whose arm was severed in a bus crash, one mainly confined to a wheelchair, one born without a forearm, and another who is profoundly deaf.

In theory, this is a great, positive move – not only opening doors for potential models with disabilities, but also for the modelling world in general. If it works, that is.

But we live in a society where the fashion world is a high society business. What's edited to be shown on our TV screens is, as we all know, a very different story from what goes on behind closed agency doors.

Here we have an industry that has seen, in the last year, two models die from starvation, and hundreds of others surviving on a staple diet of Coke Zero and coke finely ground.

Young girls are being coldly told that, at size 8, they should go away and lose a few pounds until their bones protrude and their periods stop; until clothes don't fit them, they hang off them; until they are shadows and nothingness – just cheekbones and chalk-white powder.

So is the model industry really ready for disability, with its not-so-perfect models of models, where they have to tread carefully before dishing the insults, so as not to land themselves a lawsuit?

Already the gasps at the abuse has begun, with judge, Laura Masters, apparently making some kind of comment about aspiring deaf models, that they should be able to "work and speak." Not that this stopped talk-a-minute Kate Moss.

But this is the world of fashion: ruthless. It sets its benchmarks and adjusts them for no one, even when called for by health ministers and protestors. If these women wish to be treated as other aspiring models, then they should not be cast the sympathy vote.

UK Marie Claire editor Marie O'Riordan, who serves as a judge for Missing Top Model, says: "I want to see the winner shake up the fashion industry. These young women shouldn't be invisible to the fashion world just because they are disabled."

And how true a statement. The girls on the show are all incredibly beautiful, and their determination is humbling. Let's hope the fashion world positively embraces this change and set different benchmarks across all levels, and doesn't just brush this off as novelty.

External links:
BBC - Britain's Missing Top Model http://www.bbc.co.uk/missingmodel/.