Deep, dark suntans are fading from fashionability because of cancer and wrinkle fears, according to a survey sponsored by a dermatologists' group. But tanning-industry officials say the bronze look is alive and well.
Fifty fashion leaders surveyed by the American Academy of Dermatology and the Avon Foundation were "virtually unanimous" in their opinion that the dark tan once fashionable is no longer in vogue, the academy said.
"The main reasons for caution under the sun are fear of premature aging and knowledge about skin cancer," the doctors' group said.
Those polled ranged from Cosmopolitan magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown to New York model-agency head Eileen Ford, the academy said in a statement promoting May as "Melanoma-Skin Cancer Detection and Prevention Month."
Doctors say the popularity of suntanning is partly to blame for the soaring U.S. rates of melanoma, a skin cancer that killed an estimated 5,800 Americans last year.