Friday, January 26, 2007

Plus One

Our society has an issue. Well, several issues, but one that the Today Show and Real Simple yet again brought to my attention. Showing real plus-size women is just anathema in today's media. Which is just ridiculous, especially since Americans are getting bigger and bigger. See, the Today show had a segment on what jeans people should wear to flatter their body types. Real Simple provided the jeans and the models. Their plus-size model can't have been over a size 12. Probably closer to 10. That's not plus-sized. Same with most of the plus-size models out there. Yes, it's great that they have women modeling who are in the double digits of sizes. But if you're a ten, you are not representative of the women who actually are plus-sized. It's like the Lane Bryant models. They cannot be wearing the clothes Lane Bryant makes without those clothes being modified. So, really. What's the point? You have plus-sized store but then show all the women who shop there that they aren't really pretty enough or sexy enough to represent the store? And smaller sizes then become stigmatized as well. So now a size 10-12 is big? What then is normal? 4-6? 2-6? 0-6? That seems like a great trend. Rather than encourage people to be healthy, whatever their body type, let's encourage them to strive to be as tiny as possible. That won't make everyone miserable, I promise...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

About the whole Lane Bryant thing- I have two complaints about them I feel like sharing here. One, when you go in the store all the clothing is pinned and stretched out on the manequins to make them look great. When you try an item on it makes you look big and baggy. That drives me nuts. The second thing that makes me crazy is that they send out a catologue with unlatered plus sized clothes on skinny women. It look riduculous. What the hell? How about showing us what it really looks like?

Rebecca said...

Exactly. I want to see how people who look like me look in those clothes. And I don't want all my clothes to be hanging off of me! Not all plus-sizes have a double-d chest! Hmph. I really have considered starting my own store, just so I could take care fo things like this...