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Loading...Another Magazine Takes a Bite From the Forbidden Fruit: V Magazine Dedicates January Issue to “Plus Size” Models
Following Glamour magazine’s example of celebrating all kinds of body shapes, V Magazine has decided to kick off its first issue of the New Year with a feature on “plus-size” models.
“Big, little, pint-size, plus-size — every body is beautiful,” Stephen Gan, V’s editor-in-chief, told the New York Post. “And this issue is out to prove it.”
Famous “plus-size” model Crystal Renn, who recently released her memoir “Hungry,” will be featured in the January issue among other “plus-size” models. The women are rumored to be shot both in the nude and dressed by photographers Terry Richardson, Bruce Weber, and in an unusual turn of events Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel designer, who recently bashed curvy models.
“No one wants to see round women,” said Lagerfeld in response to an announcement by famous German magazine Brigitte that it would use “ordinary, realistic” women rather than professional models in future photo shoots. Lagerfeld called the decision “absurd” and driven by overweight women.
“These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly.”
Why Lagerfeld has signed on to shoot V Magazine’s “plus-size” issue is a question that remains unanswered? Has the designer had a change of heart?
While I am thrilled by V’s decision to celebrate a wider (no pun intended) definition of beauty like Glamour has, I am worried by these one-off attempts at incorporating “plus-size” models into the mix. If magazines really want to commit to “celebrating all kinds of beauty” as Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive stated or prove that “every body is beautiful” as Gan has said, they are going to have to do a lot better than a single “plus-size” model issue.
Segregating “plus-size” models in “special” issues like Glamour and V Magazine have done only serves to further seperate “plus-size” models from “real” (that is, ultra skinny) models and establish them as the “other.” This is not the way to go about celebrating new kinds of beauty (not to mention the fact that these models are not actually plus-size).
And what’s with the insistence of photographing “plus-size” models in the buff?
The picture that started this revolution of curvy models in magazines all began with the bare-it-all image of Lizzie Miller in Glamour magazine. Then Glamour did a full two-page spread of 7 nude “plus-size” models and now the “plus-size” models in V Magazine are rumored to be shot in the buff as well. Let’s see these women in the same beautiful garments that “real” models get. Now we just need willing fashion designers.
That being said, I do not want to discredit the efforts made by Glamour and V Magazine to escape the thin-ideal of beauty that we have all become so accustomed to. We need magazines like Glamour and V to pave the way for other magazines and designers to follow suit.
But they may need a little help getting it right. And that’s where you and I come in! Any ideas?
Read more: crystal renn, fashion, hungry, model, plus-size, v magazine, womens rights
Photo courtesy of glamour.com - http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2009/10/these-bodies-are-beautiful-at-every-size
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+ add your ownIn an average day how many women do you see that are rail thin? Thank you Melanie M for your comment as well.
The real problem is that the fashion industry like the media exploits women. They are guilty of brainwashing both men and women into a false sense of what is sexy. The same goes for the "what's in" as far a fashion. Wear what you are comfortable in, don't spend ridiculous amounts of money on clothes are in less than year are "not in" any longer. Simply realize that the fashion industry feeds on you the public and takes advantage of you the public.
Thanks!
She doesn't look plus size to me.
hmmm well this post had some interesting posts
Yepp! The womens real weight acceptance movement is on the march so watch out! check out this link : http://kateharding.net/
Thanks to Wendy F for confirming what I've thought about sizes of clothing. I was really surprised when i recently read that Plus Size was considered size 12 and up. Wow. But if we go by what the seamstress knows, than it would actually be a size 16? Hmmm, then why not say size 16?
If you look good in your clothes who cares? I was so thrilled years ago to see the magazine MODE appear, it celebrated normal sized women, it didn't last. Did we normal size women not buy it? Was it hard to get advertisers to support it? Circulation figures kill magazines. So if you didn't support it than how can we yell and scream (and that's not just for that one magazine, it's for any product aimed to celebrate normality).
We're asking to change a cultural norm here. Oh for the days when Ruebenesque women were celebrated! I say be who you are, look good ALL the time from the inside out. Don't frump around looking like a slob. Put yourself together and be proud of who you are! You don't have to earn six figures to dress classy and appropriate. Knowing I will get flamed here...really, ladies do we look that good wearing a midriff bearing outfit when we have rolls of fat hanging over too tight and short skirts or pants? It's just not classy. That's not having a positive body image, that's just not classy. I admire larger women who know what looks good on them and who walk with their head held high, their beauty shining from within, but still looking like a lady without.
So What! Who made "Twiggy" a high price model? Answer: Some french speaking fagg or it was stupid women who envied the "twig" look. At any rate like-minded men and women love shaply women of all colors and races. "Viva the round soft good lookers" as models for every day women;they reflect the shape of what real beautiful women look like. But please get off the simpathy trips for so called "poor suffering eating desorder" American goargers.
Concerning "real" women - surely when can all agree that women of all sizes are real? I would like to see more models who are closer to the average woman in size. Hack, as a fat (or "morbidly obese" woman) I would like to see some truly "plus-sized" models since clothes that suit someone who wears a size 14 will not necessarily suit me. But I also think that it is unkind and silly to say that very thin models are not "real" - or that they all have anorexia. Statements like that don't benefit models, and the don't benefit people with eating disorders (who come in all sizes).
Just as most everyone here, I think the idea that all women should be like these super-skinny models is ridiculous. However, being from a family of women who naturally are very thin, I resent the comments insulting thin women as a whole, going so far as to imply that we are all anorexic. For some, such a body type is in fact normal. So, those of you commenting on how disgusting these models are, and all women like them, you are just as bad as the fashion world's extremists. Because just as they are going to the extreme with their status-quo for models' sizes, so are you who make such over-the-edge anti-skinny comments - or rather, insults.
I am puzzled by the pole revieling most voters believe the future will hold plus-size models in the mainstream. Unrealistically positive, wouldn't you say?
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