Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Ummm, no.

So a friend of mine told me that the latest winner of America's Next Top Model was plus-sized, and I thought, cool! That's awesome!

Well, it would be awesome, if she were actually plus-sized.



I mean, don't get me wrong, she's a very beautiful woman, and I'm sure she's very talented and charismatic. (Really, honestly not being sarcastic.) But she's a size 10! That is not plus-size! That's just not really skinny! (Which, I guess, is a step.) Seriously, folks plus-sized doesn't really start until size 12 or 14 depending on the clothing brand/designer.

Unless you're paying the extra ten bucks for the same outfit, it's not plus sized!

Gaze, Internets, at what a plus-sized woman is actually shaped like!



Also, gaze at the dirtiness of my bathroom mirror and my inability to set the white balance on my digital camera!

Now, I certainly lack the talent to be a model, I'm not photogenic and I don't have the acting ability or the physical stamina. But come on, people. There is an entire industry full of plus-sized models that would probably be happy to win reality shows, too.

And besides, Project Runway is still more interesting.

7 comments:

Renegade Evolution said...

um yeah, the winner? she looks pretty normal sized to me...over at the naked city blog there has been some posting on "what is an alt model", plus sized models included...it's all just so...WTF?

Octogalore said...

Good point! I had a feeling she was going to win for exactly this reason -- she's not really plus sized, just larger than the others (which doesn't take much). So they could feel progressive, without really picking someone who's actually plus-sized. As Ren would say, file under typical.

Daisy said...

I liked her personally, so I'm glad she won. The others were dissing her! (And you think: DISSING HER FOR WHAT? Jesus Lord!)

Great photo, and I like your dress!

Plain(s)feminist said...

12 is NOT plus-sized. I don't buy this revisionist sizing crap - 12 was never a plus size until recently, and I'm not sure what's gained by calling it one now except to make people feel bad about their bodies.

I remember when "plus" sizes began at 18.

Vanessa said...

Oh, I think it's great that someone not super-thin (not that there's anything wrong with being thin, just that it's not representative of you know, average people) won the competition, and my friend who follows the show assures me she was kind of awesome anyway, So that's cool too.

And PF, I too remember when plus sizing started at size 18.

I love fashion, I love design. But there's something wrong with the industry, from the more commercial end on up.

And it's funny too, I really think it's a more recent (as in, last few decades) problem (peaking with perhaps the 'heroin chic' of the 90s-early 00s. Made me pine for the days of Linda Evangelista). If you look at a lot of the, say, Balenciaga designs from the 60s, for example, you can tell the clothes were meant for a different kind of body.

But the very fact that a size 10 woman won the contest is a step in the right direction, I think. Just don't call her plus-sized.

Donna said...

This is like when everyone was freaking out over how "fat" Britney Spears had gotten. I was like, she's probably a size 7, and that's fat???

CrackerLilo said...

Thank you, thank you. This needed saying.

What gets to me is, I can't even shop from "plus-size" catalogs (size 16/18 here) because women this size are what get hired for them! You don't know what it'll look like on *you*!

A size-10 woman with a great personality should be on regular couture runways instead of the scowling stick figures they got now.