shifting my gaze slightly, as i 'work from home' today, i want to talk about our jiggly parts. yes, those parts we'd prefer we could hide all the time. the parts our spanx are supposed to smooth, slim and contain.
perhaps sexist asshats like don imus (who only want to see cool smooth slim girl bodies and have a disgust of, or contempt for, women with strong, big, active, dark, large or bulging bodies) will think twice about opening their big mouths if we all take a page from joy nash's book.
nash says the fashion industry treats big soft girls like we don't even deserve to wear clothes. with the closing of forth & towne and the downright refusal of major clothing lines to not make clothes up to a freaking size 22, at least, i have to agree with her.
...
last night, on Top Designer, carisa lost to matt. i heartily disliked the self-regarding carisa but i liked that she was plump, stylish, feisty and smart. (i'd never live in a room she designed but whatever.) i preferred her wacked out narcissism to kellie werstler's chihuahua-like 'mad princess' moue.
and it ocurred to me that we hardly ever see the carisa types end up in any kind of finals on tv.
unless, of course, you're rooting for laila ali on Dancing with the Stars. she's big, strong, muscular and i love watching her wrestle her dance partner every week. hot.
...
simon doonan was on ultra HD the other night. while they watched christian lacroix's spring/summer show, he and the fashionable male host bemoaned the incipient demise of haute couture - no one knew how to wear it anymore, no one appreciated the craft blah blah, sob sob. then, pointing to a breadstick thin girl clomping down the runway, doonan says something like, 'how fabulous it would be to see that dress in a size 22 or 20. you see? because it's hand made and made just for that individual woman, haute couture can make anyone look fabulous.'
the male host tried to mask his surprise but his face screamed, 'really?! a fat woman?!'
...
so. anyway. there's my number up there.
10 comments:
1. Oddly every fashion magazine I have perused lately has featured clothing from Forth and Towne, which annoys me.
2. I love Carisa and her aesthetic, and would totally love to live in one of her spaces. I love that she rocked leggings with miniskirts and tops that showed her shape. It literally caused me pain to read comments on top design blogs criticizing her for her weight (not to mention one of the contestants criticizing her). I thought she was adorable, and I freaking love that she made the finals. You are right, we never get to see chubby girls make it. I read recently that America (from Ugly Betty) is a size 8 - and she is considered plus-size. Ridiculous.
3. I saw Laila Ali on Rachel Ray (who I like because she doesn't even bother to pretend she doesn't have an appetite and doesn't eat) recently, and I thought Ali looked really quite slim - big boned and muscular, maybe, but slim. Maybe it is from all the dancing? I have a hunch that in real life she'd look quite thin.
4. I think some people think that if the sizes don't exist, people won't "grow" to that size - as though having sizes above an 8 encourages eating or something.
5. I love that video.
love love love this video.
This video is the best thing I've seen all day.
isn't it great?
i watched a couple times and when she actually mentioned her size i was sort of startled!
i thought, 'dude! don't say that!'
and then i thought, 'hey, why shouldn't we tell people what size we are and what our weight is? what's to be ashamed of?'
so i'm getting a tshirt made with just that number on it. i think it'll be cute under a cropped blazer.
Thank you for posting this video. Ya know... us boys have now joined the girls with the body-image issues. Thanks to all the pumped bodies in movies like '300' and such.
She has a great point about the choices we make. 2 thin parents and 4 thin grandparents. As long as we eat healthful an excersise enough we need to be happy with what we've been given.
Try finding pants at The Gap or Banana Republic with a 38 waist and a 36 length. Not going to happpen.
Always provacative reading.
Thanks
thanks for reading, wade. (and once i have time, your link is going on the side, too!)
i think our country is nuts and i really have our psychopathic celebrity culture to blame. when perfectly NORMAL people (men and women) are getting all in a twist because we don't resemble celebrity fictions, there is something wrong.
i used to live in boystown for a couple of years and watching my friends get all frantic because they weren't 'hot' enough, didn't go to the gym enough, didn't get asked out enough - it was a mirror of what i heard when i was with my girl friends. our self-doubt was insidious and sometimes led to really destructive behavior.
oh, and i haven't shopped at Banana since 1998. when the only thing i can buy there is shoes or a cute glove/hat set, what's the frakking point?
they still piss me off with their refusal to provide sizes above a very narrowly cut "16".
LOVE this video. Thanks for posting it. Four thin grandparents, heh. So damn true. I myself am one of those 95 percent: I lost about 60 lbs four years ago, and it took two years to all come back. I'm so convinced the diet and your life will be perfect mindset is poison, but I still fall victim to it. Our whole damn culture is bipolar: slug out and eat crap or exercise and "eat right" which if you've been properly programmed is code for diet diet diet. Even though I know better I still have to get over the binary opposition there. Even though exercising makes me feel strong and healthy it's still psychically tied to weight loss. And I have to undo that every single day.
And I LOVED her Ghetto Glamour store reference: it's true! We never had Fourth and Towne in So Cal--the only places I can go shopping are Lane Bryant (which depends entirely on the store/neighborhood: the only ones who stock cute stuff consistently are in West LA and the Fox Hills Mall) and Ghetto Glamour stores like Mode Plus. I really wish their stuff was better made. Cute but disposable.
I haven't seen Dancing with the Stars but watched Top Design in spite of the fact I disliked all of them (judges especially) but even while I disliked Carisa (mostly because she reminded me of my snotty cousins) I was pleased to even see her there because she looked more like me than anyone else on that show (and really, anywhere else on TV.) And I thought: the reason noone likes her is a)she's fat b)she's young and c)she's a woman. The guy who won Top Design was way more of an asshat, but everyone seemed to lerve him because he was a tortured genius ie: macho punk peter pan. I do think in the finale Carisa showed some self-awareness and was fairly gracious in spite of herself (though the "I'm just put together that way" comment about wanting to win for her carpenter was just a bit precious).
I digress. Thanks for posting this video. Helps keep me honest. By that I mean true to myself.
255. That's my number. Harder to write than 20 or 22. Funny, I've been trying to undo the weight fixation my entire adult life. I've been fat my whole life, and went on my first diet when I was 8. And still, that stuff's right there, just under the skin. It's nice to be reminded it's not just me.
liza,
my mom put me on my first diet when i was junior high. i remember eating little mounds of cottage cheese, slices of peaches and WEIGHING my fucking food. nice way to grow up with a healthy self image.
i look at pictures of myself back then and now i wonder, 'what the hell was she thinking?? i was frakking cute!'
(i was short, was what i was.)
my old roommate used to shop a lot and once in a while she'd say to me, 'tell me your size and if i see something cute, i'll get it and bring it back.'
'uh, i don't think you'll find my size.'
'oh, come on. you're what - 14?'
'um, no. i'm an 18/20.'
'oh.'
then she'd come back and say all breathlessly, 'i never realized how hard it is to find something cute in your size.'
i'm trying to get into the active thing but it's hard because i make excuses for my work schedule - and i refuse to turn into one of those soulless people who are always going to the gym to go nowhere. but my doctor took one look at my blood pressure and pretty much said, if you don't get your stress level down, you're going to explode.
so, rather than think about my waistline, i'll think about stroking out and leading a more balanced life. but not because i want to be thin.
and it's funny: one of the only things me and my friends NEVER talk about - weight. like, we've never told each other what we weigh or what our size is. weird.
Found by way of catching up just a bit on Orange's blog. I have seen this video and LOVE it. Even wrote Joy a fan letter, something I NEVER do. I agree about enjoying seeing someone like Carissa on tv and *succeeding*. All too rare. I recently posted (don't remember when) about ANTM and the "plus" size model not stating her case which was a huge disappointment.
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