Said David Bonnouvrier (who runs a top modeling agency). There's a lot of talk about too-thin models lately, with calls to ban models who fall outside the World Health Organizations definition of normal. There are concerns that the models are damaging their own health and that they are inspiring other women to take up health-impairing practices. I note that articles on this subject, like the linked one, always include a photograph of a super-thin models who has freakishly shaped legs.
But I'm especially interested in Bonnouvier's statement. The fashion industry invites us to indulge ourselves and spend large sums of money on beautiful clothing. But it also constantly shapes and reshapes what is seen as beautiful. If this wasn't changed all the time, we wouldn't need to buy so many new clothes. The industry must be about changing our perceptions of what clothes are beautiful, and along with that comes the ability to change what we think about how the models look. Hair, makeup, facial features, body shapes -- these are all part of fashion and all part of the idea of the beautiful that the fashion industry shapes. Most of the criticism of the ultra-thin models says that it is evil for the industry to convince us that something unhealthy is beautiful. But this kind of chiding can make thinness seem rebellious and transgressive, and that will stimulate some thinsuasts.
So let me focus on this idea that to be thin is not luxurious. It doesn't fit with the invitation to self-indulgence. We're asked to love pleasure and to deny pleasure. The very thin woman embodies extreme self-denial, discipline, and abstemiousness. If we really believed in the values her thin-seeking behavior represented, we would become skinflints about spending money on luxuries. We'd become clothing minimalists. That would not be in the interest of the fashion industry.
Instead of looking at these models and trying to think up a very extreme, rigid diet for your nutrition, why not think up an extreme, rigid diet for your wardrobe? There's much less suffering involved, and you will save time and money.
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Who couldn't love Twiggy? Yet I suppose the gist of all this hearkens back to the nasty notion of dominating a woman's body, molding it so to speak, forcing it into a certain shape and genre for profit's sake. Boney broads and bucks, what a Thursday thought.
So Red Bull, cigarettes and cocaine aren't luxury items? Probably not very nutritious, either. When I see these famine-victim models, with their bones stretching out their skin and their candy-apple heads, I think of the elegant Audrey Hepburn, whose thinness was a result of being starved as a child in war-torn Europe. She spent her life working to fight hunger.
Elizabeth, according to the article, a lot of those runway models really are Eastern Europeans from a poverty stricken background, but they are now driven to abstemious ways to keep their employment.
[The fashion industry] also constantly shapes and reshapes what is seen as beautiful.
I don't think so. I think female physical attractiveness (at least from a male perspective) has remained more or less constant since the dawn of time. Clear, unwrinkled skin, symmetrical features, small, pointed jawline, all signs of high health and fertility. Long, shimmering hair - which is only possible in youth.
Lots of people have pointed out that the "ideal" woman has become thinner over the years, but there are at least two reasons to explain this. One, giving the current abundance of food, fat is no longer a survival advantage. Two, with better nutrition, women reach sexual maturity even earlier - and with pheromones and whatnot, perhaps our subconscious has, quite rationally, adjusted the "ideal" to be younger and thinner.
Basically, my point is the fashion industry is powerless to change ideals of physical beauty. It is mostly driven by biology. They can change our ideas about clothing, but not about bodies.
(Having said that, I do think culture does play some role - different cultures do emphasize different aspects of beauty. And social pressures and diet can really change the weight distribution. In many East Asian countries, if you are overweight, you may not be able to sit on the subway, since the space alloted for each seat may be too small. Yet celebrities from any culture are universially recognized as beautiful, indicating that most standards of beauty are biological.)
Years ago -- we need not go into how many -- I dated a young women whom I found very beautiful. She was obsessed with being "fat". Her "vital statistics" were exactly the same as Marilyn Monroe, so I thought I'd rent Some Like It Hot to prove to my girlfriend that she was not fat. She was voluptuous. Her reaction: Marilyn was fat! She thought one of the 20th century's sexist women was chunky.
Know what? By today's standards, Marilyn was a little chunky. I prefer yesteryear's standards. It's one of life's biggest unfairities that so many women do not understand just how beautiful they truly are.
I heard a fashion person recently say in essence that the idea is for the models to be like a hanger. Don't distract with any shapeliness, just walk the outfit around.
SteveR: That's a very common thing to say about models. In fact, Marilyn Monroe says something very similar in "Some Like It Hot." Looking at one of the men in drag, she expresses envy at how flat-chested he/she is, because clothes hang on her. It's actually true that female curves play havoc with the lines of the clothing. You may say "great!" but the fashion designer wants you to concentrate on the clothes.
In our culture, elite standards of feminine beauty correspond to the sort of beauty available only to the elite.
When tans meant you did manual labor outdoors, tans weren't fashionable. When thinness meant you were poor or diseased, fatness was fashionable.
Now, if you have a tan it means you have the leisure to acquire one. If you are thin it means you have a personal trainer and don't eat at McDonald's every day.
Fashion-beauty is all about signifiers of wealth.
Hey, what does more permanent damage to a body: starving it to stay thin for modeling, or professional football? I don't know that many retired professional football players, but the ones I do know have one thing in common: permanent injuries. As noted, this is a small sample, but still...
Zach: Don't assume that it's the difference between men and women. It's also the difference between clothed and naked. Skinny women make the clothes look right, fluid and hanging elegantly. They don't look that good naked though. I've done a lot of figure drawing in my time in art classes, and I've seen a lot of skinny nude models. The same goes for male models too. The fashion models are thin, but you need more flesh to look good naked. As an artist, I much preferred someone who was a little heavy to someone too thin. The well-formed muscular model never seemed to show up.
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