Victoria's Secret's new campaign
Oh, Victoria, whatever will we do with you?
For its latest ads, Victoria’s Secret has chosen the innovative route of featuring septuplets. Oh, they have different skin tones, but you can tell the models are related because their bodies are EXACTLY THE SAME.
“There’s a Body for every body,” goes the tag line. You’re funny, Victoria. Very funny.
Distorted views
We keep hearing that plus-size models represent the average American woman, who’s around a size 14. But people who cite that number also say the average height is 5’4″.
Um … size 14 at a model’s 5’10″ looks a lot different than at 5’4″. (more…)
National Eating Disorder Information Centre
Now there’s a greeting card!
The National Eating Disorder Information Centre, in Canada, launched a campaign last month targeting the fashion industry. They sent greeting cards and t-shirts to “selected fashion leaders and marketers all over the world.”
Curve skeptics!
In all the debate over Mark Fast’s runway show, nobody seems to be asking the obvious question: Why do we see healthy women’s bodies as flawed?
In case you haven’t heard: Fast did the unthinkable at this year’s London Fashion Week: He sent plus-size models down the runway in skin-tight material. Bye-bye, baby doll tops, and let the controversy begin: The outfits were “unflattering”—a “detriment” to plus-size models, critics said.
Yet bone-hugging fabric on underweight women? We heard not a peep about how unflattering that is. Those women are not flawed, you see. And that, my friends, is where the problem lies.
I guess it’s time to visit Vogue Curvy. I’ve been avoiding it. But, doggone it, as a blogger covering weight in the media, it’s my duty. So I will woman up and take the plunge.
How ’bout you? Want to dive in with me?
In case you haven’t heard, Vogue Curvy is a Web site from Vogue Italia that’s for plus-size women. The thing is, I’m not sure what I hope from it. What if they skipped over the middle sizes and hopped to the larger? Once again, healthy-weight women would be invisible. But … what if they didn’t? What if they included healthy-weight women—and called them plus size?
So, if you’re feeling brave, let’s take a dip into the newest entry into the plus-size craze. Will they pass the test? And what test do we want to impose anyway?
This post has moved. Please click here to read: “Marilyn Monroe’s Real Clothing Size—in Today’s World.”
