The ideal of beauty in any given culture is always difficult to attain. Consider the African tribes with women with the enormous clay disks in their lower lips, or with hundreds of painful scars on their bodies. Or consider Europe in the baroque period where where very large women were considered attractive. It was a status symbol that meant "I am wealthy enough to eat so much that I become fat" and also that they didn't have to work. In current western culture, with an abundance of food, it is easy to be fat. Being thin is difficult, so it says "I am able and willing to devote my time and resources to being beautiful." So again it's a status symbol, as the poor and uncultured are unlikely to devote the time or have the money to be thin. The height of fashion models seems to be an extension of this idea, since a tall lanky frame makes one look even thinner on the runway or in photos. In real life standing next to a tall woman (in my opinion) negates this effect, so being tall is not a prerequisite to being beautiful, just to being a model. How long ago? Probably in the 1960's when models were getting really thin. Personally I like women who are shorter than me...

well the dresses they have to wear are very long and some of them are not meant to drag on the floor

Well, they might not be necessarily attractive but to my opinion, they look quite exquisite.

I concur. I think that it is bunk that the fashion industry ignores that the average women is about 5' 4" but runway models are usually taller than 5' 7" (Fashion model Devon Aoki is 5' 5" is an exception). If fashion houses want the average women to buy their clothes, then put their high couture on ordinary women, but of course, they won't do it. Fashion houses want to put their clothes on unusually-well endowed women to keep them out of the hands of the average plebian. But them I'm 5' 9"