Sunday, September 18, 2011

There's still "them" and "us"!

"The simple fact is that clothes look better 
on beautiful, slender young women."


(Do you really agree with this?  Or do you find it that it offends and upsets you because it's based on the premise that unless you're beautiful and slender and young, you'll never look stunning whatever you wear!)

The above blurb appeared on the Sydney Morning Herald website which accompanied the article "Disappointing negatives hamper the catwalk's plus side" on August 11th. 

It's an interesting article that points out, as far as I can see, that unless we include plus size models within all fashion show catwalks, that there will always be this "them" and "us" philosophy.

What is doubly interesting though is that the article points out that the clothing for the plus-size was mainly, quote:  "The problem with the Big is Beautiful show was that, while the models' wide smiles showed how proud they were to be joining Vogue Italia's plus-size cover girl Robyn Lawley , on the runway, the clothes were often less than inspiring.  Leona Edmiston offered the only true designer brand, her new Leona + by Leona Edmiston label.   The rest of the offerings were Myer private-label brands and middle-market items that reinforced the stereotype of plus-size clothing as frumpy and forgiving.  While Myer deserve plaudits for catering to women who wear sizes 16-24, fashion shows are about aspiration and there was little to excite on the runway, whatever your size."


I was, quite frankly, astounded to read the following sentence:  


"The only truly stunning model was Lawley 
who, by the way, appears to have whittled down
 from a size 14-16 to a size 12."

Weren't we all told that Robyn represented the plus-size because she was size 14?   If she is now size 12, how can she possibly claim to be a plus-size model?  (And again is that size 12 Australian or size 12 American?



(Photograph copyright SMH.com.au)

2 comments:

  1. Oh heck, sometimes it astounds me the women they use for "plus size". If I looked like that, I would not consider myself fat at all.

    I think this is a great example of how shallow the world is.. To care about a person's clothing size is about the height of shallowness, IMHO.

    Janet

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  2. Thanks for your comment Janet. We are of similar minds.

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