A temporary board while I'm working out issues with the real WD.
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Lucretia wrote:I understand Sarah, apologies if I annoyed or upset. I am not trying to be provocative.
Oh, heavens, no offense was taken. I was just illustrating an absurdity. I mean, I think I haven't weighed 114 since I was eleven. I distinctly remember weighing 119 when I was twelve, right at the start of puberty, and by the beginning of the next summer, after a miserable year, I had grown two inches and weighed 160. Then, after three glorious months of swimming for hours every day in the cold Atlantic Ocean, I was in beautiful shape, and I'd dropped a mere 10 pounds. Since then, the thinnest I've ever been is 140, and that weight was always reached during periods when I was experiencing great stress. No one could persuade me that I was fat when I weighed that much, and the notion that I'd have to weigh more than 26 pounds less to meet the standards of the great god Fashion is both hilarious and horrifying.
Ghost wrote:My opinion is that a good designer would be able to design clothes that would hang well on women of any size and that if they are only good enough to design for only super thin women, they aren't very good and should be replaced, especially since the majority of women in America are curvy or larger.
Actually, I've been saying this for years.
Although, as a separate issue, I want to stab something every time "curvy" is used to euphemistically mean "overweight." They are not the same thing, goddamn.
I want to emphasize that I never stated that curvy means overweight. If you look at the unmodified picture in the link I provided, she has curves but is still underweight. The comments about the modified picture discusses the fact that her hips are the same width as her head. The popular ideal female shape if an hourglass shape, meaning breasts and hips with a thin abdomen. In other words, curves. I have never heard anyone ever try to promote the idea of anorexic women being attractive outside the fashion world. American women spend probably billions every year on plastic surgery to get curves.
Lucretia wrote:No one could persuade me that I was fat when I weighed that much, and the notion that I'd have to weigh more than 26 pounds less to meet the standards of the great god Fashion is both hilarious and horrifying.
Exactly! When I was in seventh grade, I was 4'10" and weighed 82 pounds. Twenty-two years later I'm 4'11" and weigh 155 pounds. I'm definitely overweight -- I freely acknowledge that -- but I'm obese according to all those charts that doctors and insurance companies use. The thinnest I've been in the last 10 years was 122 pounds, and I actually got called into the principal's office (I was teaching at the time.) because a rumor was circulating among my students that I was on meth because I was "so thin." (Really I was just overworked, depressed, and living on cigarettes and Route 44 cherry Cokes and BLTs from Sonic.) I get that there are a lot of factors at work here, and I know I have a boatload of muscle mass and have a large frame even though I'm ridiculously short. But I would never want to weigh less than 120 pounds because I really do look too thin at that weight. Yet those aforementioned charts usually say I should weigh between 95 and 115 pounds. Again, I know those are just guidelines, but those guidelines don't work for my body AT ALL. And if I wanted to break into petite modeling (Ha!), I'd have to weigh the same as I did in seventh grade before I got boobs and hips, which would put me weighing a full 40 pounds less than when my kids thought I was a meth head.
I have to admit, though, that even though I know that 120 pounds is really too thin for my body, I still freak out a little and think I need to lose massive amounts of weight when I read that Kristin Chenoweth and Lil Kim (who are the same height as I am) weigh less than 100 pounds.
I am currently overweight, but according to those BMI charts, I should weigh 172 lbs. I can't get a job as a flight medic because they won't hire someone my height who weighs more than 195 lbs. When I got out of "A" school in the Navy, I weighed 195 lbs. and I was extremely thin for my frame.
Amy, I so agree about society not being driven by those consuming. I really love how you said it and will probably cut and paste it later pretending it is mine.
Er, I mean, to study it. Yes.
Tie that together with Lucretia's very apt observation about designers selling a vision - or a haunting nightmare of eternally never being thin enough - and we have our rather fecked up society to a t.
In summary, Ghost needs to club RL over the head and take control of the company.
mgan wrote:Amy, I so agree about society not being driven by those consuming. I really love how you said it and will probably cut and paste it later pretending it is mine.
Er, I mean, to study it. Yes.
Tie that together with Lucretia's very apt observation about designers selling a vision - or a haunting nightmare of eternally never being thin enough - and we have our rather fecked up society to a t.
In summary, Ghost needs to club RL over the head and take control of the company.
I think you got to the heart of my argument in less words, and much better words.
I hesitated in posting what I did, because people's perceptions of modelling and weight can be so tied up with their perceptions of their own looks, and I didn't want to hurt anyone or suggest that their weight was unacceptable in any way. I am completely hung up on my weight, so is my mother, and it is horrible that we are.
My flatmate and I have had so many brilliant discussions about modelling and perceptions of weight. Whilst eating ice cream and drinking wine.
Lucretia wrote:Who drives them? Demand. The public. It's our perceptions. Not the designers.
I strongly disagree. It's often said that we're a consumer-driven culture, but we're not at all. We may be driven by consumerism, but consumerism is a producer-driven culture. Producers create demand for the products and services they're already making so that they can continue to make money with a minimum of expense. Actually catering to consumers is wholly unprofitable.
I'll use reality television as an example. Reality shows are produced because they're much much cheaper to make than scripted dramas. People then watch those shows because they're the only thing on. (And what are you going to do, not watch television? Ha!) The producers of said shows can then use "consumer demand" as an excuse to make more reality shows. I mean, people are watching them, so it must be what they want to see, right? But consumer demand is not what's driving it - it's the fact that the shows are cheap to produce. Consumers may desire alternatives, but providing alternatives must be cost-effective for the producers because consumer desire is otherwise irrelevant.
Clothing designers like skinny models because it's easier (read: cheaper) to make clothes for them. They feed the public the idea that they're trying to serve a cultural standard of beauty rather than the bottom line because it puts the burden on our collective psyche rather than their greed. Our perceptions are by-products of the producer-driven market.
I mean, if you'll notice, no one is saying that the model's weight is a problem because it's gross*, they're saying it's a problem because it will cost them money.
*except Karl Lagerfeld.
I liked reading this. Damn you for making me think!
However - do you mean that it is cheaper to make clothes for skinny people because less cloth is used, and that is why skinny models are employed? I'm not sure if I'm misreading you.
