photos from Google Images
When I was a young woman I bought and read Glamour Magazine every month. I poured over the fashion photos and read the articles and spent a fair amount of time dreaming about someday writing some of those articles. A male friend once berated me for how much I loved that magazine. He said it was a complete waste of my time and mind to read it. I pointed out that he spent at least much time perusing Playboy, Hustler, etc. I don't remember him being properly chagrined, but it did shut him up.
I haven't read Glamour in years, but it's still around. In the September issue (on the newsstands now), in an article on feeling comfortable in your skin, Glamour ran a photo, not of an actress or supermodel or of anyone whose idea of lunch is a can of Red Bull, but of 20 year old Lizzie Miller (above, left), a softball playing, belly-dancing young woman who's coincidentally 5'11" tall, 180 pounds, size 12-14, and BEAUTIFUL. One of things I love about her photo is that she's not afraid to show that like most of us, she does not have a belly off which one could bounce quarters.
Since this issue hit the stands, Glamour has been inundated with favorable letters to the editor about this pic. By modeling industry standards (there's an oxymoron for you) Lizzie Miller is a plus size model. Dove started the Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004, in an attempt to make people realize that beauty comes in all shapes, ages, and sizes. Maybe the message is finally beginning to take.
So which model do you find more attractive?
cross posted at Talking to Myself
5 comments:
OMG, the one on the right looks like a picture of the starving children in Biafra they used to show us in order to get us to put our milk money in the missions box...
We had the greatest "Fashion Show" at the cafe on Saturday night...now I need to post some pictures.
I read the article online, and I absolutely love it and its message of self acceptance. Here's the catch though. The woman on the left is a PLUS SIZE model. I read where she is a size 12, and that she floats to a size 14 is actually encouraging. The average American woman wears a size 14. She is average, but her job is essentially selling clothes and other products to women who wear a size 18 or over. The image she's depicting when she's not promoting self acceptance is as unrealistic for the target market she's chosen for as that size 0 chick on the right. Modeling size 18 or 24 or 34 clothes on women like her tells a large (pun intended with an estimated one third of American women wearing over a size 18) group of women that they and their bodies are still unacceptable. This and the Dove campaign are a good beginning, but I'm not celebrating our culture's acceptance of different body shapes and sizes yet.
I love that Lizzie is comfortable in her own skin and I love that Glamour is finally bringing the real us out of the closet. But I agree with Cynthia that for larger woman -- 18+ -- it's unrealistic to look at a dress on a size 12 and actually think you are going to have a waste line when you choose the same dress. It's not going to happen.
So, I would challenge Glamour to put additional real women in their magazine ... in the real sizes that they buy.
Yes, we could then add that promoting larger sizes promotes ill health, but really, fashion and good health do not go hand in hand. Historically, now or probably ever.
I've seen shots of concentration camp survivors who could have doubled for the gal on the right. If Lizzy is a plus size what does that make those gals some of the old master's paintings, especially those fine old Rubens. :-)
We posted that same picture on our multi-author blog this week. I LOVE it.
I think it's effected a lot of women, quite positively.
I mean, let's face it, the model on the right looks like a preying mantis.
Post a Comment