Sure, fashion is superficial - in my mind, I am still Patsy and I Am Thin And Gorgeous - but disrespecting it doesn't make you a genius, which brings me to this terrible piece of social (mis)observation by Caroline Weber over at The New Republic. This thing has so much that's just ludicrous, I just have to "fisk" it. So here we go:
...The writing, I am pleased to note, has been on the wall ever since September 2006, when Spain banned underweight models (as determined by body-mass index) from appearing in Fashion
Week. Italy, Brazil, and India soon followed suit, and prominent designers-- notwithstanding their reputation, wickedly parodied in the movie Zoolander, as chief culprits in the conspiracy against female plumpness-- came out in support of the decision.
Oh where to begin... how about the fact that, as Weber notes, Paris fashion week issued no weight or health guidelines at all? But how about also mentioning that 7th on 6th, the organizers of New York Fashion Week, issued no rules either, only guidelines (orchestrated by - bear with me here - Anna Wintour) that, for instance, perhaps it would be better not to serve so much liquor at parties.
Giorgio Armani declared it the fashion industry's duty to "work together against anorexia," while his compatriot, Valentino Garavani, denounced the ascendancy of size-zero mannequins in even harsher terms. "I think enough is enough with thin model," Valentino proclaimed after his most recent show in Paris. "Recently we have not been watching women on the catwalk, but a parade of skeletons." And although French industry leaders refused to
regulate the weight or health of the women walking the Paris shows, Valentino emphasized that he had already taken matters into his own hands: "The models I used were far fleshier, more like normal women."
The models Valentino used... were essentially the models he always uses, and most of them - still - are probably 2s and 4s, maybe a 6. "Like normal women"? The average American woman is a size 12. Also, it's worth pointing out that designers are mostly giving lip service to this stuff - Armani's against anorexia, not in favor of fat people. And Valentino's ingenuous claim aside, if all he saw was a "parade of skeletons" it might be worth asking just whose parade that was. But never mind, Weber's only just begun.
Just last month, the fashion industry made another giant step toward "normalcy" when American Vogue placed the Rubenesque actress Jennifer Hudson on its cover, smilingly showing off cleavage so copious that it probably weighs more than the average, undernourished fashion waif.
On the previous month's cover: Renee Zellwegger. On the cover following Hudson: Scarlett Johanssen. We can argue about Johanssen's voluptuousness, but Zellwegger would be... a pretty "undernourished fashion waif." And both, of course, are the sort of blue-eyed blondes one usually finds on Vogue's cover, as opposed to, say, Hudson.
The image represented nothing less than "history in the making," according to Vogue's Andre Leon Talley, who styled Hudson for the shoot. At very least, and not insignificantly, it changed the history of the feminine beauty ideals disseminated by Vogue, the world's most influential fashion magazine. I call the move significant because, as recently as 1998, Talley's boss, the famously pencil-thin Anna Wintour, decreed that Oprah Winfrey could not be photographed for the magazine's cover without first shedding a significant amount of weight.
Emphasis mine. Oprah went from a 12 to an 8 for the shoot, reportedly. She's put much of the weight back on. The pictures of her in that Vogue are, indeed, stunning.
In the issue featuring Hudson, Wintour adopted a refreshingly more expansive view, writing that "the question of body image is a current one, and I can't think of a more compelling and beautiful argument for the proposition that great fashion looks great on women of all sizes than the sight of Hudson in a Vera Wang dress on the red carpet."
Hudson wore Oscar de la Renta to the Oscars (she wore Vera Wang to the Golden Globes), but never mind.
Almost anyone can tell you that Wintour's opening essay is mostly a fiction meant to sell that month's stories.
Implicit in this critique of Hudson by Weber is the notion that Hudson's bigger than Winfrey. I don't think she is - she had to gain weight to play Effie, and appears to be about a 10 in Vogue, if that (she's rather short). There's more on Wintour coming, but consider for a minute, Vogue's latest innovation: the annual "shape" issue, in which Wintour deigns to present a "variety of sized" women to show that Fashion Is For Everyone. Who was on the Shape Issue cover this year? Johanssen. And who was the heaviest woman in the issue? As always, the pregnant woman.
Surely such a statement caused the legendary clotheshorse and socialite Nan Kempner--who in December 2000 told W magazine, "I loathe fat people"--to roll over in her grave. But Kempner's time appears to have passed, symbolically as well as literally. By the time the Hudson cover hit newsstands, the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute had already wound down its retrospective on Kempner's fabled collection of designer clothing. This costly array of impossibly tiny jackets, suits, and gowns disappeared from the Institute's galleries, making way for a new retrospective on Paul Poiret, the French couturier remembered above all for having liberated women from the corset. To move from Kempner to Poiret is, excitingly, to recognize that fashion need not demand the punishing abnegation of the female flesh. Elegance and shapeliness can--and do--coexist, even in the Costume Institute's hallowed temple of chic.
Now this I find appalling because I actually know something about this - having reviewed the Kempner show earlier this year. Since Weber's presenting fashion history perfectly backwards here, it's worth pointing out that Kempner never wore a corset. Indeed, she was naturally thin (as was Pat Buckley, and the dozens of socialites who continue to traipse around NYC). Those "impossibly tiny" clothes were themselves looser and freer than anything Poiret ever did. Poiret, by the way, invented the Hobble Skirt. So much for freedom. But the overall implication - that somehow the Costume Institute chose Poiret to follow Kempner to make a point about shape and size - is just ridiculous. Kempner - herself an emormous supporter of the mission of the Costume Institute (as was Pat Buckley, who chaired the Institute's fundraisers for many years) - would have valued the Poiret exhibit tremendously, I'm sure. As does Wintour, who features it prominently (along with - you guessed it - skinny models in the latest styles) in the current issue.
But if tastemakers have finally gotten the proverbial style memo, I fear that women at large, or larger women, have not yet taken it to heart. This month, the cover of American Vogue features a gaggle of slender, though not frighteningly scrawny, models, all dressed in variations on "the classic white shirt" that a trio of up-and-coming designers recently created for The Gap.
Of the ten models on the cover of Vogue, none can possibly be bigger than size 6 (or under 5'10"). They're
certainly not Jennifer Hudson, or Oprah.
Like any self-respecting fashion addict, I rushed to The Gap as soon as I heard about the shirts, which industry insiders are already hailing as instant collectibles. Upon viewing the confections in person, I was surprised to discover: (1) that the three designers, Thakoon, Doo Ri, and Rodarte, had cut them unusually generously (at an athletic, not skeletal, 5'11", I had to take a size small), and (2) that the shirts ran up to size XXL.
The clothes do indeed appear to be cut very generously, which seems to undermine Weber's notion that the designers have made some broad shift as much as this collection has a sizing problem.
In these ways, the designers clearly acknowledged that The Gap's customers exist in a broader range of shapes than do, for instance, the carefully starved devotees of Bergdorf's and Barneys, where it is virtually impossible to find anything bigger than a size 8--including in the Thakoon, Doo Ri, and Rodarte signature collections.
It's also virtually impossible to find anything under a size 8 much of the time, because the 2s and 4s tend to sell first.
Yet curvier women seem not to have figured out that these styles have been made precisely with them in mind--that the fashion world, which feminists have tirelessly and rightly accused of conspiring to make the fairer sex feel badly about themselves, is finally doing an about-face. When I brought my Gap selections to the cash register, the clerk ringing them up informed me: "These have got to be the last size smalls in all of New York. These and the extra-smalls all flew off the racks as soon as they hit the stores. All that's left are the extra-large sizes, which nobody seems to want."
Almost any retail person in New York could tell you that the large immigrant population - Asians especially, but
also many Central and South Americans - are smaller than most Americans, and so the demand for smaller sizes is much higher. Add into that the fact that the "Social X-rays" are also small, and it's why you can usually find a 14 and not a 4 on the sale racks.
Weber's just being wishful here. The reality is that fashion editors and the fashion business operate on a belief that clothes look better on women approximately the same shape as a hanger. And largely, they're right. That's not to say that that fashion imagery doesn't do a number on women, or that we shouldn't be concerned about anorexia and bulimia; we should. But seriously, if you think Anna Wintour is sitting in editorial conferences saying "Get me more fat girls," you're high. As much as things went too far in the past few years where unhealthy, sick girls were overused, whatever happens, models will probably remain in the size 4-6 range, and that's at 5'10" and higher in height. That doesn't mean real women can't dress fashionably, or have to feel bad for not being model sized or shaped. Dove's "real women" campaign is probably a far better example of bringing diversity of images into the marketing of fashion and beauty. But that's a rare example, even now, and no one should pretend high fashion is anywhere near changing to join it.
Dear Ms. Weber,
I was always taught that an analyst could manipulate numbers to make any point he or she wanted. But I have never seen anyone manipulate fashion history in the way that you have done-and I agree with Weboy that all your points are so very incorrect.
I have never been a size 2 and haven't been a 4 or 6 since I was in college 20 years ago. I've even gone has high as a 16 (!) but I am back to being an 8 or 10 and quite happy with who I am and what I look like. I have NO trouble buying clothes. I am what one might call a collector, in fact. I have pieces from Chanel, Lanvin (from Barneys, actually), Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan as well as Banana Republic and H&M plus everything in between. Even at a 16 I was able to buy ultra high end desingers-I have a size 14 Donna Karan jacket that is so beautiful and complicated that my excellent tailor cannot take it in and I won't be able to wear it again. So Ms. Weber obviously you know not of what you speak.
Second, this supposed controversy to me is quite silly. A) Skeletal models are extremely unattractive and they will fade away becasue of it-fashion will take its natural course and everything has a fashion (models included). B) Agreeing with Weboy clothes look better on thin models and the fashion shows and ads are really designed to sell clothes which, don't anyone kid herself IS the point of all this. Or the bottom line if you'll forgive a pun of sorts. Manufacturers or designers (if you want to give them a more glamourous name) are all in business to make money-and why shouldn't they.
And third, though for me the most important-perhaps instead of berating the models or the industry we could somehow begin to teach or show people to feel good about who they are and what they look like no matter what their size. When my size 8 body goes shopping I NEVER think, "Oh I'll never look like Shalom Harlow (my favorite model) so I must be worthless"- what kind of crap is that?!?!?! I think, "Ooh look at this beautiful dress, if it fits me I"m buying it" then I start to think about what shoes and accessories I will use to adorn it. But, if it doesn't fit me I do not beat up on myself-I just don't buy it and move on to the next beautiful piece out there-there are millions to choose from (or I decide if my tailor can do something to make it fit and a great tailor is much more important than any couturier!)
Manhattan women tend to be much below the national average for weights and sizes, partially because of the immigration Weboy mentions and partially becasue we walk so much-I bought a size small in the Gap pieces you mentions too and I am not anywhere near 5'11". As an aside the Gap collection is not only a brilliant continuation of a trend that lesser priced stores are getting into (i.e., H&M with Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney etc., and Target with all its designers) but the quality of the fabrics and the design integrity is really fabulous! I love my two dresses and love the cover of Vogue because it is incredibly beautiful and becasue THAT is how real women dress. We mix designer with non-designer or high with low or dressed up and dressed down. One of my favorite outfits involves my Chanel pants with my Karl Lagerfeld for H&M top (I always smile at the irony of it). And I do acknowledge that I am, thank G-d, in a place that allows me to buy Chanel pants among other things and that not all women can do that. So I should amend my thought to say, that is how real women dress-its the mix not the size.
Posted by: Jennifer | April 28, 2007 at 09:24 AM