Curvy women photographed like thin models
There are many beautiful, sexy plus-size women; however, if we never see ourselves reflected in the mirror of media as sexy, we begin to feel invisible. This is the ongoing dilema for the curvy girl: to be at once a visual spectacle, told she’s “too large” thus “too visible,” yet to simultaneously feel invisible in the domain of beauty and sexuality.
The F-Word.org has a fabulous, in-depth interview with grad student/photographer Kristin “Lou” Herout who replicated high-fashion magazine ads with “real” women as part of a study of the way the image of the ideal woman has changed in modern times–”he women progressively changed from large boned, round-faced, beautiful women to bone-protruding, thin women.
I’ve included an excerpt here regarding the treatment of plus-size women in media and advertising that for many years caused me much distress–the portrayal of larger women as anything BUT sexy:
It is extremely rare for any plus-size woman to be seen as a sexual being unless it is being portrayed as a joke. As stated in my paper, there is a “Wingman Training Manual” that is published by Maxim magazine that tells men how to keep their buddies from hooking up with a big woman when he gets drunk.
In my scholarly paper, I discuss the phenomenon of the plus-size bride; the bridal industry must represent plus-size women in some ads because the plus-size woman accounts for a large chunk of the market, but in an ad, the plus-size woman is treated very differently than her thinner counterpart. She is given a simpler dress, simpler background and loses the sexy mysteriousness that is common in haute-couture models. The plus-size girl wears a huge toothy smile, therefore there are different expectations for a woman of larger stature compared to a thinner model.
I think that campaigns such as the “Dove True Beauty Campaign” are commonly more hurtful than helpful. If this campaign, women are shown as being proud of who they are, great! But these women are average-size women; plus-size women are left out in the cold in this campaign. Also, these women still aren’t given the same attention as thin women: they aren’t shown as really sexy, they’re shown as being confident, despite their curves. They should be presented as being beautiful, sexy and proud, just as thin models are. Otherwise we are still making an exception for average-size women, instead of making them the norm.
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Very good points Angela! I have never even thought of the Dove Campaign like that and you are so right. Although they are larger than the average model, they are still average sized women. I feel the same about plus-sized runway models, I personally consider many of them thin! We still have a long way to go when it comes to women’s relationships with the media but I’m confident that in time we will get there!
Kate Dillon is a gorgeous model who is the face of Marina Rinaldi. She’s been around in plus-size modeling for years now, but she is not even close to plus-size. In fact, she may have gotten thinner in the last few years.
So, even in plus-size fashion we don’t get real plus-size images. If not there, then where?
I have a picture of Kate at this link:
http://curvylife.com/2008/04/01/the-brits-really-get-it-or-the-uk-is-leading-the-curvy-revolution/
Not only are the Dove ladies average-size women, they’re also appearing in an ad for cellulite cream, which is typically associated with being fat (even though most women have it). As one Dove ad reads, “Firming the thighs of a size-2 supermodel is no challenge.” So, firming the thighs of “chubby” women is? Why doesn’t Dove put its money where its mouth is and show the same average-size women in its ads for products everyone uses, like soap and shampoo?
Rachel, you make two really important points:
1) Though cellulite is associated with being “overweight,” cellulite can occur in any woman. In fact, fat women tend to have fewer problems with cellulite than thinner women. I’m sure that there are many size-2 supermodels with cellulite.
2) Why can’t we see all sizes of women represented in ads for products used by all women? Women of every shape and size use lotion and soap. Yet, we rarely see even average-size women, much less fat women, selling anything other than cellulite cream and diet programs.
Dear Curvy Angela
How are you,
We love your approach and I would like to point your attention to the Mozaïk~Curves project.
The subject of roundness and of slenderness could not be more actual. Nowadays, several women have difficulty appreciating their own body image. However, The Human Mozaïk chose to sing the praises of curves and of round bodies by inviting women from across Canada aged from 18 to 50 years old to lend their forms to semi-nude photography and to unique artistic creations inspired by their curves. Each model’s curves and roundures were interpreted by different artists according to their respective styles, techniques and medium.
The Mozaïk~Curves project is also a collection of testimonies, poems and affirmations. The texts are written by the models, courageous women who become natural, artistic, proud, beautiful and intelligent. This is an original, colourful and inspiring project shedding a positive look on women’s curves and roundness!
http://www.artmozaik.com/Curves.html
Please tell us what you think,
Great work on your Web site!
Regards
Human Mozaïk
http://www.artmozaik.com/
mozaik@artmozaik.com
I am very, very curvy. I am a size 18. But an average 18. I am not like those fat women who are a size 24.
Let me make point, larger women are just as sexy and those pathetic anorexic idiots. And just what is so good about being looking anorexic.
The fashion industry has a lot to answer for. Hey, I got plenty of curves (size 18) and I constantly get men saying that I am sexy and bigger women gives them something to hold on to.
To all you curvy women, be proud of who you are and stay positive.
Curvy is sexy but not fat! Tiny waste with an hour glass frame and nicely toned and defined is curvy. Not fat!
Im a pluz size model I model for fetrist and artsy things and us girls are soft and old fashion looking i do have to say Marlyn Monroe was a size 14 and she was curvy I have stetch marks but alot of photoghfers love art they use alot of use cury what real beauty is some use are born slim or curvy if we were all the same we would fit over each other bodys better to be diffrent then the same,
There is a new brand of jeans that are absolutely fabulous for curvy shaped women of all sizes. The brand is Little in the Middle, and this jeans line caters to all sizes of women that have a curvy shape. One of the most interesting thing that it does; is that it is sized one size smaller in the waist than in the hips, so it eliminates that awful gap in the back of your jeans that let your rear end hang out while seated while offering a great fit.http://www.littleinthemiddle.com/v3/litm_shop_jeans.html
@Chrisdtina George: Even though I agree with your post (I *think* that you were trying to say that everyone is beautiful no matter their size), I’d have to disagree on your statement that Marilyn Monroe was a size 14. It’s a common argument used by bigger people. Sizes were different back then. What she wore was probably a size 2 or so now. She was “curvy”, but not the “curvy” we have now, which usually means bigger. Her curvy was a genuine 36-24-36, an out-in-out body.
sorry here the real one i looked it up wrong she a plus size tho
Was Marilyn Monroe a plus-sized beauty? An average dame? A svelte sphynx who’s been a posthumous victim of vanity size deflation? Like the Bible and the Nazis, she’s become a rhetorical gambit that can seemingly be twisted to support any argument. The argument has been further confused by various celebrities’ authoritative pronouncements. Liz Hurley made perhaps her most lasting contribution to the cultural lexicon when she notoriously declared to Allure, “I’ve always thought Marilyn Monroe looked fabulous, but I’d kill myself if I was that fat…I went to see her clothes in the exhibition, and I wanted to take a tape measure and measure what her hips were. (laughter) She was very big.” Roseanne, for her part, stated in ’96 that, “I’m more sexy than Pamela Lee or whoever else they’ve got out there these days. Marilyn Monroe was a size 16. That says it all.”
Okay, first of all, when folks toss around the “Size 16″ thing, yes, that’s a British 16, by which they mean a U.S. Size 12. (Although it should be said that some have made the claim for the U.S. 16, too.) Then too, this doesn’t even make a lot of sense, because most of Marilyn’s clothes, and certainly her costumes, like those of any star of the era, would have been custom-made. And as anyone who’s seen her films knows, her weight shifted a lot, so any “Marilyn Monroe was X size” statement is, stopped clock-style, probably going to be accurate at some point.
But if people demand numbers? They’re certainly out there. According to measurements from Marilyn Monroe’s dressmaker:
Height: 5 feet, 5½ inches
Weight: 118-140 pounds
Bust: 35-37 inches
Waist: 22-23 inches
Hips: 35-36 inches
Bra size: 36D
In other words, whatever her size, her figure was an unusually dramatic hour-glass, which makes it kind of strange for women to compare themselves to her anyway. When a collector displayed a bunch of her most famous costumes in London recently, “they had to get a special mold made for the corset and swimwear dummies in the exhibition because Monroe was such an extreme hourglass shape that no off-the-peg dummies existed in those measurements.”
So, what size was she? Well, like most women, she wasn’t one size everywhere. When British journalist Sara Buys had a chance to try on some of Marilyn’s clothes earlier this year, she reported:
After all these years, mystery and conspiracy theories still surround her death, but when it comes to her physical attributes, I can put a few facts straight. Contrary to received wisdom, she was not a voluptuous size 16 – quite the opposite. While she was undeniably voluptuous – in possession of an ample bosom and a bottom that would look at home gyrating in a J-Lo video – for most of the early part of her career, she was a size 8 and even in her plumper stages, was no more than a 10. I can tell you this from experience because a few weeks ago, I tried to try on her clothes.
Okay, now we have to translate British sizes. (HuffPo, adding to the confusion, neglected to do this in their link headline from April.) Depending on the designer, a British 10 might translate as an 8, a 6, or even a 4. And vintage clothes of that era were cut slim, intended to be worn with serious girdles, so take this into account. The answer? There’s no “exact” number. All we can know for sure is that Marilyn Monroe was a gorgeous, dramatically curvaceous woman with a physique heavier and curvier than that which is en vogue now.
The better question is, why do we care? To show the evolution of our aesthetic, certainly. And obviously, curvier women were the ideal – and whatever the verdict on Marilyn, stars like Jane Russell and Esther Williams were more voluptuous, larger-framed and more athletic than almost any we see on the screen today. But stars were always thin and urged by the studios to be thinner (see: Judy Garland.) Maybe part of the Marilyn fixation is what Buys gets at: with a figure so enigmatic, we want to pin down as many facts as we can. And what we’re really talking about is not Marilyn Monroe’s dress size: it’s her sexiness. Marilyn Monroe was an icon, not of fashion, but of sexiness: a combination of her beauty, her obvious comfort with her physicality, her intelligence, and her vulnerability. Her dress size does not explain this, or give us a clue: she is iconic because she was unique, and no amount of arguing is going to change that.
It’s not about proving whether Marilyn Monroe was “plus-sized” or not; obviously, plus-sized women can be beautiful and sexy, whether Marilyn belongs to the sorority or no. Can we make a resolution, please? Let’s leave Marilyn Monroe out of the discussion from now on. She was a beautiful woman with an iconic body of work and a fanatical following, but her dress size – which fluctuated and had very little relation to the clothes and styles we wear today – has nothing to do with your size, my size, or that of anyone in Hollywood today. Comparing oneself to anyone is counterproductive, and in this case it’s futile. Marilyn was someone who was comfortable with her body, and it’s this that comes through. So let’s follow her example – and leave the woman in peace.
Read more: http://www.stylecaster.com/news/web/186420/for-the-last-time-what-size-was-marilyn-monroe-some-like-it-hot#ixzz0h6V2O3Gr
What people do not realize, is height in porportion to size. When you are tall, you can distribute weight and curves over a larger body size. What some never realize is that a lot of these women who look oversize or plus size are not tall! Marilyn Monroe was only 5’2″! She was a size 10 or 12, depending on what tabloid you read. But, it was distributed well on her small frame! When you are short, it is harder to look small or wear petite sizes when you are not porportioned. This could be whey the taller models get the bigger bucks!! Look at Janet Jackson. She is short. She has a problem keeping her weight down just like any other celebrity. What Janet does is just before she goes on tour, she goes into training and stops eating junk and fast foods. This helps her burn fat and calories.
After reading all of the comments before mine, I see that the issue of plus sizes disturbs a lot of you. Why should it??? We are all beautiful in our own individual bodies. Sowhat. We are not all size 4. Who cares?? Beauty comes in all shapes, colors, nationalities and dress sizes. Be who you are, and not what the magazines and tabloids say you SHOULD be. Don’t buy into the hype. I NEVER have.
next time i’ll dbl check my typo’s. but i found zoey’s post rude.
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