V Magazine and the Plus Size Debate.

So, I'm sure by now that everyone knows about V magazine's upcoming issue, and the use of plus-size models. I am really, really glad they are finally using someone above a size two in a mainstream fashion magazine, however, I think it's a shame that it always has to be under the understanding that this is a one-off, like the Vogue "shape" issue, and that the fashion industry is pretending that they are okay with plus size models (i.e. still skinnier than the average regular woman), so they stick them in an editorial and ignore them for another year.

I think it's important that we see bodies in a fashion/advertising context that are many sizes and shapes, because in the real world, that is what people look like. If it was just fashion, it would be one thing, but fashion spreads lead to advertising, lead to women being constantly being surrounded by these images of abnormal body sizes regarded as the norm.


On to V magazine, a few weeks ago, we saw the spread featuring Crystal Renn and Jaquelyn Jablonski which went a bit like this:



This is when I realized how far the brainwashing had gone. I looked at this picture, and began using my brain to mentally Photoshop Crystal Renn's body into something closer to Jaquelyn, because it seemed SO WRONG to see someone that big in a fashion spread. Then I realized that I'm far closer to a Crystal size than a Jaquelyn. Then, of course, I felt like a bad person.

Then, these pictures came out, which just made me feel. . . uncomfortable.






I am not used to seeing women with bodies like that in real life, scantily clad. I hate to say it, but my initial reaction was "ewh". But I had to fight through that, and think to myself: "You know why I'm think 'ewh' right now? Because I have never, ever been exposed to the fetishizing influence of women's body in any other way than the waifish teenage fashion models. Maybe if I had seen spreads like this throughout my formative years, all the time, there would be no shock value in seeing amazingly beautiful size ten women. Maybe I wouldn't be so hellbent on altering my body into something I feel is more acceptable, maybe I would not critique women's bodies I saw in the street. Maybe we could all love each other then, and sing kumbaya in our sisterhood of self-acceptance.


Another thing that I see as ridiculous when it comes to models, is the straight size/plus size gap. If you are a straight model and are drifting into size 4 territory, you won't get work. But to be a plus-size model, you are generally at least a size 10. What about the wasteland from size two to ten that encompasses a regular looking cross-section of the way women look? Do we have to go from celebrating skeletons to fetishizing fat without looking at anyone in between? When there are articles with Lara Stone talking about how persecuted she is in the industry because she dare have breasts and be a size four, it makes you wonder what reality the designers and modeling casters are living in.



A few months ago, I read Suzie Orbach's book "Bodies" and it really got me thinking. It basically said that in a post-industrial world, when few people work manufactoring jobs and produce anything substantial, we have turned to our bodies to be the ultimate consumer good. And indeed, fashion is no longer selling clothing; fashion is selling a lifestyle. Fashion is indeed, the only industry that the consumer is expected to alter oneself to fit the goods, not the goods catering to the lifestyles of the person. In this way, they are indeed selling luxury, art, and a lifestyle of being rich and loved, by fitting in to preordained notions of what designers and stylists have deemed an acceptable body shape.


For me, I prefer using fashion and make-up as a means of expressing myself. I wake up each day and see it as a cycle of reinvention, a mask of sorts that I can be anyone from any time period or cross-section of society, then I can go home, undress, take off my make-up, and wake the next day to be somebody else. But the idea of reinvention can indeed be dangerous. The idea of starving myself, or having elective surgery to "improve" some part of my body, seems very inauthentic. I feel that instead of using your body to express yourself, at that point, your body is the expression. To me, seeing somebody who is that insecure with their own body, the essence of themselves, is troubling. It's like seeing someone who always wears jeans and tee-shirts when they have to go to a "fancy" event, and look so out of place and uncomfortable in heels, a dress, and make-up. They are living in an inauthentic self.


It's so easy to tell yourself that "If I had x, then my life would be y". Losing fifty pounds will not make you a famous actress or a rich socialite. Fake boobs will not give you the love and real relationships and attention that you so crave. If you put all your emotional insecurities on your body when what you really need is a therapist, then when does it end? When did this notion of an endlessly alterable body come into being anyways? A product of postmodernity, as always. Before then, people were too busy working to obsess over these things, and class was an immense barrier. The rising middle class who now had consumer power, coupled with the diffusion of information through technology has made body comparison and status more relevant. In the old days, a worker wouldn't know what a couture gown or a $1,000 pair of shoes looked like. Shows like Sex and the City haven't helped, and made luxury brands household names.


Things like that make me hate fashion. There is the artistic side that makes me excited about expression and art and beautiful objects. But the downside is the pressure to conform to a body image and the 'keeping up with the Joneses" competitiveness that seems to go on between the fashion industry people. Conspicuous consumption is distasteful to me, and at the end of the day, I'd rather talk ideas with people than brag about how much I spent on a bag.


To me, fashion is the stage on which to live your life, not your life itself. Fashion and beauty is your way of presenting yourself to the world to give them a hint what is going on in your mind. It shouldn't be the end all and be all of your existence.