this model was fired by her long-time employer this past april. for 8 years, since the age of 15, she has done print and runway work for ralph lauren. she was fired for being too fat. she is 5'10" and weighs 120 pounds. the termination letter sent to her agent claimed that because she could no longer fit into the sample clothes, size 2, she was being let go.
heartbroken, she kept mum until she saw this photoshopped image of herself on a board in tokyo. her head is bigger than her goddamn hips. it looks horrible. she also kind of looks like a young brooke shields which is weird since she doesn't. this ad caused quite a bit of interwebs kerfuffle so lauren pulled it with awkward non-apologies and is trying to get it erased from the net. haha! good luck with that, ralph. but what kind of disordered group thinking wants to morph a gorgeous model into looking like an auschwitz survivor with a blow-out? it wasn't just one person that got this image and this ad and its distribution all green lighted, but a team working together in a process.
there has been buzz lately about the use and abuse of photoshop, with some editors going so far as to say readers don't want to see how women really look, especially models and celebrities. the nanny state of france is trying to pass a law requiring all photoshopped magazine pix to carry a disclaimer. it would be far less ridiculous for untouched pix to carry a tag, since there are none.lastly, we'll look at lizzi miller. this was in glamour a few months back. she is 5'11" and weighs 180 pounds. from the looks of things, i'm guessing she's perhaps had a baby. she is a successful "plus-size" model and wears either a 12 or 14. there is no arguing she is a big girl, but i'm sure in person she looks great, i mean, she is amazon tall, ya know? modeling agencies consider anyone over a size 6 to be a plus-size model, even though it's 16 and up in shops.
fashion has always been about fantasy and that will not change. nor do i think it should, so i'm not advocating to see fiddle-faddle chomping lard-asses in harpers bazaar. unless a woman was raised by wolves, she knows the chicks in the magazines are genetic freaks and/or starving themselves to death. (actually, a girl raised by wolves would be very slim and lean from all that running and subsistence eating, lol, so maybe that's not the best example...) i also find specious the consideration that these models "make" their audience into anorexics. that's craziness in one's own head and isn't about looking like agyness deyn.supermodels in my youth (when i was in fact torturing myself with badly disordered eating) were cindy crawford and rachel hunter. they looked healthy, athletic, fit. they had hips and breasts and filled out the swimsuit fantasies of the young men i knew. heroin chic was decades ago and still the ideal is considered to be wraith thin and built like a boy.
americans are getting ever fatter and we all agree that's a bad development. even though this is one of the thinner cities, i still see many people that are of a staggering size. only a couple of my female friends are overweight, yet every single one struggles with both the scale and self-image. even as i get slimmer and am fitting into some long unworn clothes, i torment myself with the scale. if the number blips up by even a pound i scan my memory banks and dissect each caloric molecule for the culprit, and see only a bloated pig in the mirror. "did that chicken leg make my ass look fat in these pants?" 2 weeks ago the owner took me clothes shopping. the scale had ticked up that morning, so i could barely look at myself to see if anything fit and simply refused to try on any slacks. of course, this led to madness anyway since a size small dress was too big and a size 14 would not go over my boobs.
last week, i finally made myself stop weighing and tracking all my food on my excel sheets. it was putting my head in a very bad place, reminding me regularly that the only times in my life i have been fully comfortable and confident in my body was when i was anorexic and bulimic. obsessing about not eating or what i might allow myself to eat after feeling insanely hungry for a set amount of time. the scale has held steady, so i haven't sabotaged myself, but each day i am increasingly anxious that i'm not losing. rationally, i know my body is redistributing itself since those size 6 pants now fit, but that doesn't silence the accuser in my head who will always know i eat too much and am too fat.
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