Hiya, Monday. I am up and at 'em again and looking forward to my quick pop up to Manhattan on Wednesday...v.v. excited.
So I titled this post "Why Don't Men Care" not as a reaction to some sort of male insensitivity or insouciance. I titled it such because I'm wondering why men don't care that there's not any "plus sized" (does that even exist for men?) models in their magazines, and why "real men" are not strutting their stuff down runways during Men's Fashion Week. I started thinking about this a couple of weeks ago, but with Italian Vogue showing some fuller figured girls on the cover this month, it gave me pause. And with Franca Sozzani, the editrix of said magazine declaring "curvy women are back in all their splendour", I can't help but wonder if they ever really went away?
We are a world obsessed with the female form. And with good reason, it's a beautiful thing. But why oh why do we constantly have to refer to women as "plus sized" or any other size? And why do fuller figured women in fashion magazines always have to be in lingerie, as if their very image is somehow erotic and fetishistic, and not simply the way some women look? I am tired of the back and forth about whether models are too thin, about the message we are sending to our budding females, and how we can eat this and not that. The new female ideal can have the ass of a Kardashian or the toned legs of a Cameron Diaz. Who cares and why do we need to keep discussing it? Do we have these same discussions about what else makes women sexy? Like their intellect or success in their careers or their ability to be fantastic moms? I guess those things don't sell clothes, but can we please just stop? Women come in all sizes- stop calling issues of magazine "shape" issues so we can gawk at women that may be a bit larger than we are used to seeing...or more pregnant or whatever. I have had it. And why do we feel the need to see "real" women in fashion advertising anyway? Why can't we just see "real" women being, well, real? Why do they need to pose- why can't they just be themselves? Real women are not models. We know this, right? Let's just celebrate women, period. Big, small, whatever. If you want to show bigger girls in magazine, great. Just stop making it so bloody newsworthy, because it isn't. Or at least, I don't want it to be.
Now back to the title of today's post. Men don't really give a fig about whether or not they are portrayed properly in magazines. Most men have a little extra acreage around the middle, loads of them are balding, and many of them don't have a square jaw. But do they care that they are not properly represented in the pages of GQ? Nope. Are they up in arms because their abs look nothing like those featured in Men's Journal? Nuh uh. And are they worried that that hot guy in the khakis advert does not speak to "real men"? Negative. Sure I've read that there is an uptick in eating disorders in men (it is estimated that 8 million people in the United States are suffering from an Eating Disorder, and of that number 10% are men). And true there is big, big pressure on jockeys and wrestlers to keep their weight down, and that today's men are definitely more conscious of not ending up looking like Homer Simpson one day. But perhaps there's enough funny men's marketing out there that men feel connected to, as opposed to seriously looking at ads for Dolce and Gabbana and wondering why some hot Italian model with a spray tan does not look like them. I wish I knew the answer as to why men don't care about these things, and why there is no shape issue in Details, or an issue devoted to hair loss. As a woman, I am tired of the self-obsession we must endure as a result of this ongoing argument about shape. Am I really the only girl that realized at a young age that I would never look like Kate Moss? Can we simply start talking about how thin is in, or that big is beautiful? Can we just be women and be done with it? PS- there will always be skinny models, that's their bloody job. So why don't men care about these things? Maybe it's because they're too busy being dudes to notice.
I would love for you men folk who read this (probably about a similar percentage to that eating disorder number) to tell me why you think men are not as consumed by such things- I know you care about how you look and can be very vain, but why do you not care about how skinny or fit or how ill portrayed normal dudes are by the male fashion industry? Is it because these ads are supposed to appeal to women and gay men only? Tell me, please. I'm dying to know for real.
OK I am done talking about full figures- my cup has indeed runneth over. Cause that's what's up this neutrally shaped Monday in the MIA. XO
For more photos from the shoot, shot by Steven Meisel, go to link below. And yes, these ladies are sexy as hell, but we already knew that:
http://www.vogue.it/en/magazine/cover-story/2011/06/belle-vere