Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Skinny models.

Oh here it is, let the hand wringing commence. After Spain's decision the other week to ban models with a BMI lower that 18, hot on their heel is Tessa Jowell, the Labour minister for culture, banging the drum for the same.
It is London fashion week and that paragon of virtue The Sun is already trembling with outrage at the fact that -gasp- a designer used slender models. What? Even after Tessa Jowell frowned twice?
From said paper: "SKINNY Lily Cole kicked off London Fashion Week yesterday — despite calls for the industry to use BIGGER girls.
Today The Sun backs the campaign to stamp out the stick insects and bring back girls with curves."
(What a busy paper The Sun is, between stamping out rape, and stamping out skinny models, it's a wonder they ever get to print)
I find it amusing that they've jumped on Lily Cole, the flame haired eighteen year old and incredibly successful model, declaring her Too Thin Lily. ( although by whose standards it is hard to guess) LIlly, the face of Hermés and Prada, a multi-millionaire and a smart cookie to boot (what a terrible example to girls she is), has naturally risen above it.
"When half the world is starving and a good proportion of the other half is suffering from obesity, to put me on the front page is ridiculous," she said.
"I'm fine. I'm healthy. I eat," she said as she prepared to take to the catwalk at the Gharani Strok show at London Fashion Week yesterday."
Remember all that kerfuffle over Jodie Kidd a few years ago? Jodie who was the a tall lanky thin girl who everyone 'blamed' for causing anorexia? The same lady who is now a happily married polo playing yacht racing gal? Yeah, her. Remember the band wagon? The uproar over heroin chic, the handwringing the outrage over the skinniness of the models? Is it that time of decade again?
Isn't it funny how papers and ministers can come out and declare skinny to be bad and in need of stamping out, but obesity-as the delectable Miss Cole points out- is a major factor in our world and can go galloping about freely unstamped upon? Or at some point is The Sun going to come out and Stamp out Too Fat Folk? Will Tessa Jowell come out and declare Johnny Vegas is a danger and bad role model to boys everywhere? That Dawn French is making girls think eating twenty Chocolate Oranges a day is A-Okay?
Models are usually close to six feet tall or more, is anyone coming out in defence of the shorties? Is anyone demanding designers get shorter models? Will The Sun start a campaign to stamp out tall people?
It is a fact of life that designer clothes on runways look very good when draped and flowing over the long lean lithe body of a model. When we see the clothing we see the product as it should look and we superimpose that look onto our own bodies. Ergo, If a dress looks totally amazing on a model it will automatically look super amazing on us. It might not of course, but that's not what we think. We covet because it looks good, it looks good becasue it is on a model. Designers know this. Retailers know this. Consumers know this, and so the world turns.
There are enough real problems in the world, models being model thin is not one of them.

14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You have to admit though that skinny models are far preferable to big fat ones.

Imagine Mary Harney thundering down the catwalk. Or Dawn French.

Unless Tents 'r' Us were showcasing their latest garment/camping home then it just wouldn't work.

9:55 a.m.  
Blogger SheBah said...

Twenty is right. The runways are constructed of MDF so can only take a certain weight. They'd have to reinforce it with steel or something. (BTW Twenty, catwalk is no longer politically correct, it's all runways now!!).

10:35 a.m.  
Blogger Dr Maroon said...

There it is again, MDF.

I have always wondered why women should take their lead in what is or isn't attractive from half a dozen GAY dress designers.

I shall write an amusing paper on the subject.

10:46 a.m.  
Blogger FINN said...

they're GAY?!?

oh doc say it ain't so!

that said, the models stalking the catwalk -- sorry shebah, the *runway* -- are less about selling fashion than selling a standard of beauty. if you've got gaunt, creaky-assed bicycles objectified as the zenith of attraction, that standard's got to trickle down to the unwashed masses, even if it's in the form of frustration and guilt whilst knocking back another super-sized meal.

12:37 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Why is catwalk non PC?

2:20 p.m.  
Blogger SheBah said...

FMC - cat-walk - apparently liberated women consider it a demeaning term. A friend of mine corrected me on manhole covers - personhole covers now! Ain't life grand. LOL!

3:30 p.m.  
Blogger SheBah said...

Oh, and it all came from the good ol U.S. of A. Like Christmas, which is no more - Happy holidays!

3:32 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Fawk me, all this PC bullshit really gets on my tits. I can still say that right, I don't have to start calling them 'non threatening yet sexual mammary bodily attachments that may or may not be used for suckling future young', do I? Casue if I do I'm going back to 'funbags'.

4:22 p.m.  
Blogger SheBah said...

Well they might be threatening if you are wearing a Madonna style pointy stitched bra! Weapons of mass excitement!
One of my new neighbours told me he was a "Buildings maintenence operator". I found out later from another neighbour that he was a builder.

4:47 p.m.  
Blogger Sam, Problem-Child-Bride said...

I'm a Domestic Engineer but wear many hats really. I'm also a Person To Wipe Your Nose On; A Seeker Of Lost Teddies and Reason; from time to time I am A Scrubber.

5:10 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Weapons of Mass Excitment, snarf!
WME, my wemmies. 'Darling just cup one of my wemmies there would you, there's a fellow.'
Domestic Engineer is rather good. I don't like the title stay-at-home-mom, because folk can't use go-to-work mom. Domestic Engineer sounds about right, I bet you can multi-task like a demon.

5:22 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I used to be a secretary - now I'm an "administrative assistant." Whatever! I just hate that the title is more difficult to type!!!

7:20 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

I asked Country Gay what my working title would be...his reply, 'piss artist.'
I wonder can I put that on my tax return?

8:06 p.m.  
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