INTERNATIONAL and NATIONAL WOMEN'S MAGAZINES

LATEST FASHION TRENDS on SKINNY GIRLS

One question remains unanswered as far as I’m concerned.  Why do women’s national and international magazines insist on showing us half-grown petulant, skinny girls (I'm not talking about naturally thin models!) to show off the latest “garment” thrown together by a well-known designer.  If you’re observant and look around you, you’ll readily see that those models DON'T represent the girls at the major store counter or the girls sitting near you at the mall coffee shop or the women in your family and groups of friends.  Those garments are, we’re told, all made in a size 0 or less - how can you get anything less than zero?  

Do you know why?  

Manufacturers tell me that it’s because the garment hangs better on a body without flesh or curves!   Aaah, am I missing something here?  Because you can't tell me that the above model is either happy or healthy and that the garment hangs better on her than on a girl with a little more flash.   There’s a contradiction here - even a size 16 girl will look different to the size 10 or less model wearing the same garment!   Is it strange then that a plus-size woman feels frustrated?  The only reason I can see why they insist on making sample garments in such a small size and using models so thin they look as though they’ll break, is because .......... it takes less fabric!    But that doesn't quite answer the question does it?  If a garment is for a size 16 girl, then surely it should be modelled on a size 16.  Yes?

If there’s another answer to this question, then I’d like to hear it.

HOW MANY PLUS SIZE WOMEN ACTUALLY BUY THESE MAGAZINES TODAY?

These magazines are still selling - and if the comments of most of the women I know is true, then these magazines are being produced in spite of the fact that not many plus size women are buying them.  What a contradiction.  Women’s magazines are supposed to be for ALL women of all ages, sizes and shapes - yet do we see ourselves represented fairly within their pages?   I only read magazines at the hairdressers, in the doctors rooms and the like these days, but not in my kitchen or lounge room (that is unless I sneak one from my hairdressers!).  

ONCE AGAIN THE INAPPROPRIATE "POSES" OF OUR MODELS and "CELEBRITIES"

Another point about these half starved waifs that I can’t understand - and I’m not alone in this, is the way they stand or pose.   Honestly most of them look as though thy need to find the “ladies” quickly or else they’ll have an embarrassing moment.   What is this all about?

Put a mini dress on a model and she crosses her ankles - put her into a pair of jeans and she sits with her legs open wide.  Am I really that old-fashioned to be offended?

LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST

The debate about the size of models has been going on for far too long, without any resolution that satisfies the majority of women.  Even young women.  I see a number of blogs these days written by young, intelligent, articulate women - teenagers through to 30-40 year olds - all declaiming the use of digital enhancements and photoshopping of models and even photographs of everyday things - landscapes and the like.   Even some of our better known and top models say they don’t even recognise themselves after being photo-shopped!    What does that say?  It says that we’re being conned, and that reality is no longer real. 

Don't you think it's about time we saw "real" women - flesh and curves; wrinkles and grey hair; faces and bodies that are their own and original (without the help of a scalpel) in our magazines - or isn't the 21st century world ready for this yet?  When will someone in the media have the courage to make decisions to show us as we are, not as "they" want us to be?

DO YOU EVER WONDER?

Have today's women become TOO obsessed with thin-ness and sexuality, losing out on femininity and sensuality?   Have we lost the ability to tell the difference?