photo: Models.com + V magazine
I started a post about this topic a while ago and have been going back and forth about whether or not to even go there. But recently there have been articles that keep bringing it all up. It? You know, the SIZE issue. (Links are live so if you want to read them, knock yourself out!)
This has been gaining strength over the past few months, actually even longer. New York mag showed Christina Hendricks in all her curvaceous glory, V magazine did a "Size" issue in January and even French Elle has reported they "are giving up on skinny" as quoted by the Times UK. In addition, there is the ongoing issue about models with the British Fashion Council along with the US's CFDA attempting to install some health guidelines so the girls don't fall down mid-catwalk because of their malnutrition. Most interesting piece about the 2010 discussion on the 2007 initiative here. Thanks Jezebel for not summarizing an important discussion into a fluff piece!
Everyone has an opinion. Renowned blogger Garance Doré criticized the movement towards well, let's just call it large- i mean, anything over an American size 6 (GB 10, EU 38) is just plain huge isn't it? Even Alber Elbaz (who is not very tiny) says in an interview with Style.com that realistically, if we ask women what they want, they say they want to be skinny and the designers can't be blamed for it.
The latest hoopla has been about Photoshop-ing. I think we all saw the Ralph Lauren ad last year and you'd think we might take a lesson. But just this past week Photoshop has been on our minds. British "Healthy" magazine was made an example of in an article in the Daily Mail and just today the Ann Taylor website got a swipe for over-retouching. Where will it stoppppp?????
So, let's think big:
- are we really ready to be faced with reality? Do we want to see "real" women in magazines that are meant to be aspirational? Or do we like the clothes on the skinny Minney's cause we can't afford the clothes anyhow and everyone knows the skinny chicks make the clothes look better (tongue-in-cheek alert here)
- will there be a backlash and a new market develops? We all know that there have been brands that are aimed at the "Plus Size" market for a long time but they haven't exactly been seen as glamorous. If the media gets on board, will that change?
- what about the health issue- can we look at large without thinking unhealthy? How large is ok? what's the line that "curvaceous" and "fat" ride?
With the whole world getting fatter should we be glamorizing large? i mean, we've been glamorizing anorexic for years...
Discuss.
3 comments:
Personally I doubt there will be big changes in this area of fashion, unless lots of money can be made from it, or if there is a huge shift in world events, whereby food and fabric becomes an extremely scarce commodity, like during WWII, or as in today's cultures that do not have the wealth and abundance of food like we do.
I think that the thinness of our models is part of fashion in this moment as a whole. The other day in the museum i was looking at traditional costumes of Vietnam, and there were 2 women giggling at the amount of colors and fabric in the garment. I took a moment to look at what they were wearing, and it was skin-tight jeans, dirty sneakers and thread-worn sweaters. The height of fashion! The contrast was surreal, and made me think that we as a society have become confused about what is beautiful; The elite women look like they are starving and living on clothes rations, while poor women in war-torn countries living in rural agricultural societies are dressing for their festivals in custom clothing that is museum quality, and quite elegant and modest, with the garment itself giving the overall shape to the body.
While I think the advertising industry contributes to the problem at large, they by no means have their fingers on the pulse of trends and fashion, and are followers of society, not leaders. My hope is that our creative leaders who set the trends will one day grow bored of wearing their panties out to lunch, and put on some clothes that will take us in a new direction. But if that doesn't happen, I think it would only be triggered by war or great hardship, whereby extreme thinness, and dirty, torn clothes become a sign of abject poverty, as it already is for half the world today.
Perfect comment from Terry and I agree wholeheartedly. Fashion is known for being perverse and Terry is 100% correct in her observation that the poorer the society, the bigger they like their women to be and vice versa. Both are dictated by the moires of society. All we can hope for is that we can "do our own thing" as long as our bodies are fit and healthy does it matter what the shape and size is? Until I was 40 I was a size 4; now I'm a 10, that's the reality of aging, eating carbs when I feel like it and drinking red wine when I want to. On the other hand, I'm fitter, stronger and way more aware of my body and its limits now than I was when I was 35. What's wrong with this picture? Nothing!
Britt, great topic for discussion. I am not quite sure, no matter how much is written, discussed or talked about in the media that we are going to see much change in how we present fashion. I think that healthy is in. I think that working to ensure that there are guidelines for both models and real women to eat properly and for sizes to be fit and in-shape is hopefully what will take precedence in years to come. When growing up, I looked at the girls in Seventeen Magazine--stick figures--with adorable freckles--and remember wishing I could look like them. Then after watching every Audrey Hepburn movie ever made, I wanted clothes to look like "that" on me. Throughout my lifetime, there have been many images and icons dictating what women should look like. I went to college, I believe when anorexia was at it's peak and I learned about it as a psych minor while counting calories in lifesavers. Luckily for me I was self aware enough to know I didn't want to be stuck in a hospital with a feeding tube and went back to eating what I wanted in moderation. I hope my niece will find her way and that fashion, society, celebrities won't influence her into asking "do I look fat" when she is a size 6 instead of a 2. I know from the way I have eaten over the years ( that even though I work out at the gym four days a week, I have slowed my metabolism down by not feeding my body enough (although what I do feed it is in the 'healthy' zone). In the context of fashion, this is never mentioned. At 50, I am still a size 4 bu more toned, muscular and sane. And, again while I think that high fashion will always be shown on thin models...there is always the question to be asked both ways: what is too thin and what is too fat. Somewhere in the middle should be the 'new black.'
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