Not That There's Anything Wrong With That
Chelsea Grider won the Seventeen reader-model contest. She is "not a size 0," which makes her plus-sized in model land. And so she models for Torrid, but they have to pin the clothes in the back. I've always loved Torrid, as you well know, and I thought they used plus-sized models; I'm a little disappointed that they're using a normal-sized model and pinning the clothes. Also, I'm disappointed that the normal-sized model gets relegated to modeling plus-sized clothing! Geez, do all models for "regular" sizes have to be stick insects? Anyway, her fellow teenagers seem to have a good attitude about the whole thing:
"Magazines always talk about positive body image, but they continue to put pictures of stick-thin models in their pages again and again. But Chelsea proved that you don't have to be a stick to look beautiful. Finally, someone I can relate to."
"Magazines always talk about positive body image, but they continue to put pictures of stick-thin models in their pages again and again. But Chelsea proved that you don't have to be a stick to look beautiful. Finally, someone I can relate to."
posted by mo pie at 11:02 PM
6 Comments:
I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I suspect it is, that Lane Bryant uses size 10 mannequins in their stores? There is one near where I work, and I can see from certain angles that they have the clothes pinned backed on the mannequins, which I think is pretty weasely, putting plus-sized clothes on a non plus-sized mannequin.
Holy crap, she goes to my old high school! Go Rams! Manual is a magnet high school, so she's probably somewhat intelligent too and not a total ditz like some models.
This whole plus-sized model thing really gets to me on a number of counts.
Firstly, quite often, a plus-sized clothing manufacturer will say they tried using proper plus-sized models in their catalogues and that it adversely affected their sales. From this they deduce that fat women prefer to see skinnier, "aspirational" role-models, electing to bullshit ourselves we will look just like they do in the clothes on offer. Personally I do want to see what a garment is going to look like on me, especially if I'm considering buying it online. But, much as it pains me to admit it, I also think those plus-sized manufacturers may have a point.
Fashion shoots aimed at non-plus-sized women always feature aspirational images – granted they make most women, regardless of size, feel like absolute shit about themselves, but they are nonetheless the norm and we've all been brainwashed to accept them as such. My theory is that there is such an enormous gulf between the aspirational imagery routinely used to tempt non-plus-sized shoppers and our own fat reality that depite saying we want to see our own likenesses in fashion shoots, many of us don't handle that reality too well. It's too radical a jump and it shocks us; possibly even confounds the sense of freakishness that being largely ignored by mainstream fashion imbues us with. (Though it could also be that most of the clothes are unimaginative and unflattering and once we clock ‘em on a plus-sized model we’d rather save our money).
Secondly, the defense given to justify the use of models who look like Belsen victims is because the mainstream manufacturers tend to make up and supply samples for fashion shoots in exceptionally small sizes. (This puny justification is invariably presented as if it’s a personal decree from God and therefore inviolable, despite the fact it sets an unhealthy and unrealistic precedent which sends women the world over completely doolally. But I digress). I imagine that where plus-sizes are concerned, the same rule obtains; if a plus-sized manufacturer starts at a size 12 or 14, then that’s the size their samples will be. Ergo that’s the size the model will be. Now, one might think that, given the market they are serving, and the market research one assumes they must do, plus-sized clothing manufacturers would care enough about us to do challenge this sorry state of affairs. But here’s the kicker: I have a friend who is a specialist in plus-sized marketing and she assures me that the majority of US plus-sized manufacturers, including incidentally, Lane Bryant...are either run by non-plus-sized folk or part of multi-conglomorates run by non-plus-sized folk. Which certainly explains the grudging attitude and lack of imagination used when designing for us.
The fashion industry simply doesn’t welcome plus-sized people – as consumers or practicioners; think The Devil Wears Prada. It’s comprised of skinny-arsed women and skinny-arsed gay men talking amongst themselves. It’s virtually a closed shop. If anything is ever going to change, we need fat designers, stylists, photographers and make-up artists; we need fat art directors and manufacturers, never mind plus-sized models.
In short, it is up to us to effect the changes ourselves.
That was an awesome post, BuffPuff!
You know, I do wear a size 0, and I still can't relate to models. I'm tall and I'm naturally skinny, but I'm not fabulously gorgeous, flawless-skinned, perfect-haired, or wealthy.
I realize that a lot of people have issues with weight that I just don't, but it's really interesting to me that the major reason cited by women (or girls who write letters to Seventeen) for not relating to models is their body type.
Yes, models are impossibly tall and slender, often with impossibly ample breasts, but there's so much else that's impossible about looking like a model that I'm always surprised to hear it come down to weight alone.
(And, lme, this doesn't prove anything one way or another, but they definitely pin the clothes on the mannequins at the Gap, too. I have no idea what size mannequins they use, but my guess is that the pins are less about size, per se, and more about creating a nice shape and fit.)
Cheers, Mo! Nice to make your acquaintance.
Anonymous, I once had an exceptionally beautiful friend who was genuinely baffled by the way people fawned over his looks because he had an identical twin, claiming, "but when I look in the mirror, all I see is my bloody brother!" Similarly, I think perhaps you underestimate the tremendous impact of the model body-type/ weight issue on the young, impressionable female subconscious because you cannot relate to it.
There are many things which contributed to my own poor self-image as a teenager - being put on my first diet before I even hit puberty for one; having self-hating, serial-dieting parents for another. But, make no mistake, it was growing up in Swinging London in the era of Twiggy, (a 15 year old who hadn't even grown a pair of breasts yet for godsake), which had the most negative impact and that legacy continues to screw with women's self-esteem today.
I'm from the UK where we have no equivalent of NAFAA nor any kind of precedent in fat politics. I adore clothes and, up until my mid-twenties, also paid good money for magazines which consistently made me feel lousy about myself, though I'd have been hard put to explain why at the time. But while in the US, I chanced upon a copy of the now-defunct BBW Magazine. I had never seen or envisaged such a thing as a fashion and beauty magazine soleley aimed at larger women and, intrigued, bought a copy. That single act changed my life and my attitude towards myself forever, because it jolted me into realising just how blatantly the media excludes and discriminates against us. I resolved to put the energy I'd previously put into self-hatred into self-acceptance instead, threw away the scales and stopped buying those poxy magazines forever.
My precise Damascene moment came when I spotted a dress I liked and turned to the index to see if any of the stores in the state I was in might stock it. I suddenly realised this was the way women were supposed to use a fashion magazine, (see an image, like it, buy the look), and that I had never been able to do so myself, let alone on a regular basis. Yes, the clothes modelled in every single fashion publication in existence might well be hideous, outlandish or prove way beyond the price range of those lucky enough to take a smaller dress size, but they can take it as read that the aspirational images in those magazines are all aimed at them and that every garment featured will be available in their size. That innate knowledge grants you a confidence you probably don't even know you possess. Any fat woman who's ever been told, "but you have such a pretty face" can tell you it's not a model's wealth or flawless skin which makes her feel like a dog by comparison
In my ideal world, all fashion magazines would use a variety of different sized models, from skinny to plus in every feature. That's how most people's lives are, for pity's sake. We don't just interact with people of identical size, we live in a great big world chockfull o' fat people! By concentrating on one extreme physical ideal to the exclusion of all others, the media damages the self-esteem of all women; while Ignoring the immense spending power of half the population is monstrously arrogant and shortsighted.
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