Designer swaps a size 20 for a size 0

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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[QUOTE=FaerieBeth]
I think I may have a slight disconnect, here. I’ve seen Tyra Banks recently on television, and she looks great at 152lbs. A Size 12, you say? Sure, I can buy that. I do not, however, believe for a moment that the woman in the OP pic weighs only 48 pounds more than Tyra Banks. Not for a freaking second. She might weigh 250. Might. If she drank nothing but water all this week, and bent her knees, leaning forward slightly, on the scales.
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My friend’s mother that is a size 28 is over 300lbs. Like I said, I wear a 16/18/20 (again depending on the store) and I’m always hoverin’ around 200. I am much, much, much smaller than that woman on the runway and I ain’t small.

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[QUOTE=Excalibre]

The Fat Acceptance movement is both fighting a losing battle and ultimately doing fat women a serious disservice if the idea is to normalize being obese. It’s one thing to recognize that not all women have the same body type (although, again, the insular world of haute couture is just not the place to look for that, because it’s not something that is influential upon most people’s attitudes). It’s a totally different thing to try to tell people to be attracted to women who are heavy enough that they are endangering their health. For one thing, only a very small percentage of people are attracted to that sort of thing - and that’s not society, it’s how we’re wired. It’s not evolutionarily advantageous to decide to have a kid with someone liable to die at thirty-five from diabetes. Men - except, again, for a tiny minority - are not going to be convinced to be attracted to women that heavy (nor are women likely to be attracted to men that heavy.) And pretending that it’s normal to be so heavy that it affects your health is not good either; most people in the United States are too damn fat as it is (and I’m overweight, so don’t think I don’t understand how hard it is to lose weight. If it weren’t incredibly hard, I’d sure be skinnier.) Pretending that that’s a good thing is not going to fool anyone and it’s not good for anyone.
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I just wanted to throw in a golf clap for this. By all means fat people should be treated equally and fairly within out society, but nothing irks me more than this idea that fat is the new fit. That’s crap. Completely bull shit that fat people tell one another to justify their lifestyles.

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[QUOTE=DiosaBellissima]
Linky.
Anyway, I would also like to note that there is no way that girl is a size 20 on her best day. Granted, the article says, “More of a size 20,” but she is clearly more of a size 24 or 26.

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Well, the link doesn’t list her height does it?

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Maybe he wanted to make the average body fat of his models come out to that of an average woman.

Kind of makes sense, now that I think of it. How many woman are actually “average”?

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[QUOTE=Queen Tonya]
Well, the link doesn’t list her height does it?
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To be a model you have to be a minimum of 5’7’‘. It’s more likely that she’s hovering around 5’9’', although she may be taller.

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[QUOTE=DiosaBellissima]
I just wanted to throw in a golf clap for this. By all means fat people should be treated equally and fairly within out society, but nothing irks me more than this idea that fat is the new fit. That’s crap. Completely bull shit that fat people tell one another to justify their lifestyles.
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I agree. Promoting obesity as the new ideal is just as bad as promoting anorexia. And honestly, I know many many more people who are overweight than underweight. Maybe it is different in other places, I know I live in one of the fattest states in America but it really seems like finding a person who is not overweight is getting difficult. We are used to seeing 10-20 extra pounds on people and that looks normal now. I was looking at my parents’ old photo album the other day and one of the first things I noticed was that everyone was so thin. This was only about 30 years ago, and they really weren’t thin, just normal weight but compared to today the average person was just much leaner.

I am not denying that anorexia and eating disorders are serious diseases that endanger young girls and that the pressure to be thin does not exist, however, we should not respond to that by saying obesity is better. Staying healthy and in a good weight range is work now but it used to be a part of life.

I don’t know what happened to normal healthy weight and reasonable eating habits in this country but there is a middle ground here. It is neither healthy or good to be anorexic and starving nor obese. I really don’t respect this designer any more for pulling this stunt, and I do see it as that. I can appreciate high fashion as art but it shouldn’t set the norm for body image any more than a Picasso painting.

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Totally coming late here, after the turn the thread has taken, but Lane Bryant’s clothes became much worse, in my opinion, after Fashion Bug bought the company. A few years before that, they were pretty decent.

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Telperien, you know, being a fatty of the younger persuasion, I really don’t mind LB’s attempt to make everything a bit more youthful . . . in theory. In practice, the clothing is just horrible. Presently, I’m wearing a basic stretch, V Neck, long sleeved shirt from there. Oh yeah, one of these. Anyway, it’s just cut horribly- I bought the top because it was on clearance and I had a coupon, but how the hell do you mess up a friggin’ t shirt? I can’t quite explain how the thing doesn’t fit right, but it’s too baggy and the seaming is in odd places. It’s particularly odd to me, as all Gap, Old Navy, and generic K Mart t shirts fit me just fine (I’m busty with a smaller waist- very hour glass shaped), but these stupid LB things are always cut so horribly that they don’t fit.

And don’t get me started on LB’s horrible jeans. I’m not a tall person, don’t get me wrong, but I grabbed a pair of LOW RISE stretch boot cut jeans and they went up to my natural waist-- 3 or so inches above my belly button. I tried the non low rise ones and they went up to my tits. How does that look good on anyone, let alone someone with a ton of jiggly bits hanging all over? The jeans gave me this really awesome camel toe of fat and doom- it’s hard to explain and it has never happened in any other pair of pants.

Yeah, Lane Bryant really needs to work on how they cut stuff.

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[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Seriously, do the experiment I recommended if you really doubt me. <snip> look at the runway photography. It’s artistic, it’s interesting, it’s really a fascinating thing to look at. But no one on a runway is supposed to be attractive or desireable, and I imagine that few of them are happy.
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I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree. It’s probably the goth chick in me, but I find the artisitc, startling looking people much more attractive and interesting than the girl-next-door type. So, yes, some of us find that runway models and clothes desirable - but tastes can and do differ.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
If you have no problem with fat women being exploited as tools of visual shock, then that’s cool. I suppose I don’t either, any more than I feel pity for the models who are so skinny they don’t menstruate being used as startling, disturbing images. Both are being used for a specific purpose, and both sign on voluntarily and get paid well.
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Meh. If they sign on voluntarily and get paid well, it’s hard to argue exploitation. Mostly I think it’s funny. She (the model) knew full well that most of the audience wouldn’t like her - but they would have to applaud regardless. It appeals to my sense of the ridiculous.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
But she doesn’t look good to the designers. She doesn’t look good to most people watching. And she’s not meant to.
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Myself and other people in the thread have said she looks good. Not perfect, maybe, but appealing. What Jean Paul Gautier thinks, I don’t know, but my point was that it doesn’t matter what he thinks: he presenting her as desirable, and that’s where the shock lies.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
The Fat Acceptance movement is both fighting a losing battle and ultimately doing fat women a serious disservice if the idea is to normalize being obese.<snip> For one thing, only a very small percentage of people are attracted to that sort of thing - and that’s not society, it’s how we’re wired.
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Well, I totally agree with the first part. Being fat is decidedly unhealthy and I would happily lose 100 pounds if I could do it with magic, since it would significantly increase my life expectancy. As for the latter part, I think you’re overgeneralizing. Humans, both males and female, are attracted to a wide variety of unhealthy people and behaviors. The norms of attraction are variable, and have changed over historical time. And I can personally attest to the fact that at ~300 pounds, I still get plenty of male (and female) attention. Admittedly, not as much as I got at ~200 pounds, but I don’t think attraction is as “wired” as you seem to think it is.

I don’t think being obese should be “normalized” - there are good and sufficient health reasons to fight it. But that’s a totally different issue from allowing fat people to be accepted as sexy. Think of it this way - encouraging people to stop smoking is good. Pointing out that they will smell better if they stop is good. But denying them any outlet of sexual expression because they’re repulsive smokers is not only ludicrous - there are a significant number of people who are attracted to smokers despite the helath risks - but also counterproductive if you want them to have the personal strength to quit. Why not encourage everyone to feel happy and sexy in their own bodies and work on health as a separate set of issues?

I also object to your strong statements that almost no-one finds unusual body types attractive. It amost seems like you are trying to declare that attraction to a broad range of body types is the pathological state. Do you really think this is true?

mischievous

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[QUOTE=mischievous]
I also object to your strong statements that almost no-one finds unusual body types attractive. It amost seems like you are trying to declare that attraction to a broad range of body types is the pathological state. Do you really think this is true?
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I’m not trying to declare anything “pathological”. I’m just being realistic here - a lot fewer people are attracted to folks with BMIs of 30 than to people in the 22-24 range.

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[QUOTE=mischievous]

I also object to your strong statements that almost no-one finds unusual body types attractive. It amost seems like you are trying to declare that attraction to a broad range of body types is the pathological state. Do you really think this is true?

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Well, I’m not Ex, but I’d like to follow this point a bit. If people are equally as attracted to the fat and downright morbidly obese just as much as they are attracted to the healthy and thin, then why do we constantly hear fat people lamenting to the fact that they can’t get a date or even get noticed by the opposite sex? Just look around this board and that particular complaint is everywhere. Excalibre is totally right in his point that most people are attracted to the average (well, I guess healthy is quickly becoming not average, but you know what I’m saying).

Of course there is always going to be someone attracted to each body type, but that doesn’t mean it’s common. I still get hit on all the time at 200, but it’s about a half as often as it was when I was even 170. The big difference that I’ve noticed is that now I get hit on by a lot more chubby chasers- “Damn, Ma! You are SO thick. I like big girls!” Dude, that ain’t a compliment I want to hear. I never EVER date those guys because, for whatever reason, I find that a lil insulting. Instead, I date the guys that usually date skinny little boobless things. I always joke that I want to be the fat chick that makes them rethink their “No Fat Chicks” policy. . . and I usually am :smiley: .

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[QUOTE=Excalibre]
The Fat Acceptance movement is both fighting a losing battle and ultimately doing fat women a serious disservice if the idea is to normalize being obese. It’s one thing to recognize that not all women have the same body type (although, again, the insular world of haute couture is just not the place to look for that, because it’s not something that is influential upon most people’s attitudes). It’s a totally different thing to try to tell people to be attracted to women who are heavy enough that they are endangering their health.
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It’s too bad that people react to the whole ‘unrealistic standard of beauty’ thing by creating a false standard of health and attractivenes. Ultimately, this movement might be successful in that people who are overweight won’t want to criticize other people for being overweight - but it won’t change the health or attractiveness issues.

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[QUOTE=Marley23]
It’s too bad that people react to the whole ‘unrealistic standard of beauty’ thing by creating a false standard of health and attractivenes. Ultimately, this movement might be successful in that people who are overweight won’t want to criticize other people for being overweight - but it won’t change the health or attractiveness issues.
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But they will continue to verbally attack my size 4 friends that go into Lane Bryant with me, because- I mean- my lil’ friend is clearly nothing more than an anorexic bitch. And being anorexic is SO bad for your health. She should REALLY eat something. shoves Twinkies down gob

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Excalibre, you summed up my feelings on the whole fashion industry/haute couture thing about a zillion times better than I did so nothing more than a major “word” to your post.

As a personal anecdote, sometimes I’ll look at TV shows and pictures of actresses from my adolescence and think “wow, she looks kinda chubby” and then catch myself because when I was growing up, reasonably thin was actually considered pretty attractive but I’m now more visually accustomed to the extra-level of thin people go for to look “thin-normal” under the lens. It’s pretty scary because I’m not that old and I feel like my brain has been re-trained visually within the space of 10 to 12 years. For instance, who was the actress who played Buffy in the movie…Kristy something or the other. I was watching that the other day and thinking to myself “Hey, she looks good, bigger than normal, but really good.” Then I remembered that she really wasn’t “big” at all, it’s just that I’m now used to seeing people who are much thinner as “normal”. See also Katee Sackhoff on Battlestar Galactica though I noticed she has slimmed down some.

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Sorry about the slow reply, I’ve been busy.

[QUOTE=DiosaBellissima]
Excalibre is totally right in his point that most people are attracted to the average (well, I guess healthy is quickly becoming not average, but you know what I’m saying).
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I’m not denying that fewer people are attracted to fat chicks - I admitted myself that I get less attention now than I did when I was thinner. But there’s no-one on the planet that is attractive to everyone. Who gets past the cutoff limit of people who can consider themselves attractive? Example: the number of men who are attracted to hairy, barrel-chested, chubby men is far smaller than the number of men who are attracted to slim hairless men, which is in turn far smaller than the number of men attracted to young women. Does that mean that the bears of the world shouldn’t strut their stuff?

So are you insulted because you don’t like being called fat? Sweetie, they like fat. Are you insulted because they’re regarding you as just a set of physical characteristics? Or are you so down on the potential of fat women to be attractive that you assume that anyone who finds heavy women sexy must be mentally defective?

So you’re fat, and you’re hot. Wasn’t that my point?

mischievous

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**DiosaBellissima, ** that’s what I’m saying. When I was your age :smiley: , and LB was still owned by the folks that owned The Limited (IIRC), their clothes were decent and classic. I still have some things from back then. They wore excellently and are basic enough that I can wear them now without anyone wondering why I’m wearing something out of style. But now, they suck. I don’t know if that’s the Fashion Bug thing or what, and I say this as a poor girl who wore a hell of a lot of FB stuff once upon a time.

And the reason they don’t sell small shoes is because fat chicks are supposed to be huge all over, don’t ya know. :rolleyes: I admit, I have big old feet, but not everyone who wears their clothes does.

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[QUOTE=mischievous]
The only thing that’s novel about the experience is that she’s being presented as attractive, happy, and desirable. And that is a real statement for Gautier to be making, even if he originally intended it as an attention grab.

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This makes no sense to me, no offense. So if I do/say something and my meaning is X, but people think my meaning is Y, that means my meaning really is Y and not X? I don’t think so.

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[QUOTE=Telperien]
**DiosaBellissima, ** that’s what I’m saying. When I was your age :smiley: , and LB was still owned by the folks that owned The Limited (IIRC), their clothes were decent and classic. I still have some things from back then. They wore excellently and are basic enough that I can wear them now without anyone wondering why I’m wearing something out of style. But now, they suck. I don’t know if that’s the Fashion Bug thing or what, and I say this as a poor girl who wore a hell of a lot of FB stuff once upon a time.

And the reason they don’t sell small shoes is because fat chicks are supposed to be huge all over, don’t ya know. :rolleyes: I admit, I have big old feet, but not everyone who wears their clothes does.
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Honestly? I hated Lane Bryant clothes when they were owned by New York & Co (etc) because while some things were classic, most were very frumpy. The problem is that they’ve gone too far in the other direction and instead are too trendy in a bad way.

The one thing that pisses me off is that they’ve sacrificed their suiting department for the trendoid crap. That was their number one mistake. LB was the only place I saw that actually sold decent looking business wear (real suits! Not just elastic waist pants and tunics!) for large women. Now, suiting is considered a ‘fall’ thing (and even then is rather lame) and so when they run out in winter, nothing is really planned to replace the stuff until next fall. Because, y’know, no one needs a suit any other time of the year (like college freaking graduates in June who are going on job interviews, hello?!).

And yes! The ‘fat people have fat feet’ thing made no sense whatsoever. I know that if you really really pack on the pounds, some fat will eventually go to your feet. But someone who’s a 14/16 or 18/20 (hell, even 22/24) are not going to have fat oozing out of their feet. I was so confused this Spring when we got the sandals in and a S was 7/8. In what world is a small shoe a 7/8? It’s a 5/6, people. But when I asked, they said that’s just how LB does things. I said, “so fat people can’t have small feet, eh?” they laughed. Heh.

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[QUOTE=zweisamkeit]
Honestly? I hated Lane Bryant clothes when they were owned by New York & Co (etc) because while some things were classic, most were very frumpy. The problem is that they’ve gone too far in the other direction and instead are too trendy in a bad way.

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Yeah. I have a strange shape and thus am difficult to fit, but I always found decent things at LB that I could wear. Perhaps over time, I stopped noticing the other stuff. I’m not saying that they never had anything horrid–they certainly did–but just that it didn’t seem as bad then as it does now.

JCPenney’s Worthington suiting pieces aren’t too bad, and they’re offered in both the spring/summer and fall/winter catalogs, though I don’t recall ever seeing them in the actual stores. Of course, now that I’ve recommended them, someone will probably come in and say they’re horrible, but they work for me. :smiley: Such is life.

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You’ve said so much that I agree with. But this part is tricky. Runway modeling is about being visually pleasing – and that’s why it intends to shock. That is what appeals to women. The runways aren’t so much about pleasing men. Women are looking for something that will get attention–something outrageous–something that will “pop.”

I can’t speak about Gautier in particular, but haute couture has a very direct impact on what we purchase at Macy’s. Our dresses won’t be as outlandish, but “dresses” will be in this fall. Red is The color. The shape of the shoe, the size of the bag, the cut of the coat, the texture of fabrics – all of these things come from fashion week on the runways.

The wealthy and famous will sometimes have and item seen on the runway made up just for them – or an adaptation that is more becoming. A similar but less elaborate item may be in an upscale boutique for hundreds of dollars instead of thousands. And something which “suggests” that style will show up at Macy’s.

Consider how much fashion models dominate the magazines that many girls and women read. Now keep in mind that even these fashion models are not good enough as they are to coax us into buying the clothes and cosmetics they model. No. Their images are computer enhanced! Isn’t that the saddest thing?
It was hard enough competing with Sandra Dee and Carol Lindley when I was growing up. Now young girls are comparing themselves with unreal standards of beauty.

And remember that when you see a model or an actress in a photo or on film, the camera has added about ten pounds to her weight!