The topic seems to have diminished of late (or I am just not paying attentiong to the appropriate sources any more, which could also be the case), but a lot of time and effort has been expended both in America and abroad trying to convince teenage (and younger) girls, adult women, and everyone in between that, contrary to what Hollywood, designers, and fashion models would have you believe, they do not have to be a size 0 to be attractive/beautiful/hot/etc. And, honestly, it is just as well – Better Half’s college-age sister told us about some of the websites and “support groups” she dug up while doing a research project on the topic, and, suffice to say, the quest to get/stay thin is an astonishing and, for many, dangerous health crisis indeed.
And, to be fair, some inroads are being made, what with designers actually complaining about models being too thin, and people coming forward with stories of just how ludicrous the fashion culture really is, but this just is not helping:
Last week, 35-year-old actress Christina Hendricks – the curvaceous, wasp-waisted star of hit U.S. TV series Mad Men – was reported as saying she was struggling to find a designer who would dress her for the red carpet at the Emmys.
‘Not one designer will loan me a dress,’ she told a Scottish newspaper. ‘They only lend out a size zero or a size 2. So I’m still struggling for someone to give me a darn dress!’
[...]
‘Most of the time Christina can’t fit into samples. Sometimes she can get into it if it has a little stretch, but not often,’ says Lawren.
‘She’s a woman, she’s got a woman’s body. But most actors these days, there’s nothing to them – they’re a clothes hanger.’
Lawren admits with unusual candour that though the 35-year- old actress’s curves – her vital statistics are reported to be a 38DD-26-34 – are the envy of millions of Mad Men fans, designers would prefer to steer clear.
‘If you have a fitting with anyone else – her Mad Men co-star January Jones, for example – she’s going to get 50 beautiful runway samples sent to her,’ says Lawren.
‘We need to have dresses made. If we don’t have them made, we have to get a larger size that’s been made for someone else but never worn, or a vintage piece.’
Lawren has to beg, buttering up the designer, saying Christina is a ‘huge, huge fan’ of their work. Yet nine times out of ten, it is still a flat ‘No’.
‘They’ll say: ”Unfortunately, we don’t have the sizes to support her,” or ”Unfortunately, we only have a size two or four.” ‘
(Note: image not from article.)
Now, I will freely admit I have something of a soft spot for Christina Hendricks, what with her role as YoSafBridge on Firefly (with the pertinent episodes being Our Mrs. Reynolds and Trash), but this is just freaking absurd. The woman’s specs are not that far out of what could be considered societal norms (though I will grant that her chest is tending towards the… large… side), but not only did the designers not have anything on-hand for her to borrow, rent, or purchase, they were unwilling to even make anything. Worse, when Liv Tyler, a woman of similar (but smaller in the chest) dimensions and attractiveness, went looking for a dress, one designer’s response was “She will spoil the line.”
“She will spoil the line”?!
What. The. Frak.
To be certain, it is every designer’s right to work with whomenever he or she chooses, for whatever reasons he or she deems important, but the only things I see Liv Tyler “spoiling” are occasionally movies with lackluster performances.
On the flip side, I will give Zac Posen (who I will actually link to, unlike all of the other designers) massive amounts of credit for not only stepping up and designing/producing something for Christina, but also creating something that specifically and intentionally accentuates the fact that she is a curvy woman.
And, no, I am not going to go down the road of what a “real woman” “should” look like; however, I have yet to find a single person who would refrain from describing Christina Hendricks as “attractive”, just as I have yet to find a single doctor who will agree that starving yourself to meet Hollywood’s / the fashion culture’s “ideal woman” aesthetic is a good idea. Be happy with what you have and who you are, every semblance of both those phrases, and you will already be halfway to the single feature that contributes the most to Christina’s appeal – her confidence. Whether she actually is confident or not is another matter for another post, but she comes off as being blisteringly self-assured in both herself and her body, and people react to that, whether they recognize it or not.
Where, by “people”, I mean “individuals who are not half-assed morons too concerned with making the smallest frakking garments they can fit on a walking twig”.
(Courtesy of Irons in the Fire.)
The thing I try to keep in mind is that fashion designers seem to come in two major flavors: Straight Women and Gay Men.
Two populations which generally have different tastes than Straight Men in what they are attracted to.
You forgot to mention that the price tag for fashion is inversely porportional to both the size and the amount of material used.
@Yu-Ain Gonnano – So those demographics have a thing for two-dimensional women?
On the flip side, I know of a decidedly non-zero number of straight women (at least I assume they are straight – most are married, but I guess they could be bi) who are quite willing to agree that Christina is attractive.
And on the gripping side, while designers are “true artistes” and thus prone to pursuing their art at the expense of all else, as is their right, they are still businessmen in the end, whether they want to be or identify themselves as such, and, really, how many women can naturally fit the clothes they produce? But that brings us to Reputo’s point…
@Reputo – Or, more realisticly, it may be a function of the number of people who can actually wear it…
Think it through Linoge. It is obvious to me that the problem is that most designers only know how to design for clothes hangers. They are a one-trick pony afraid to show the world what they are really incapable of.
True enough – how many of their products actually make it out of the closet after the first time it is worn?
Well, see, it’s because they’re fashion designers, not clothing designers. For fashion designers, the dress is a piece of art, and the woman just something to put it on so people can see it. For clothing designers, the dress is something that is supposed to enhance and emphasize the appearance of the woman wearing it.
For the fashion designer, a Terminator exoskeleton could be wearing the dress for all they care, as long as it had the right “lines” to make it look like they want. For the clothing designer, it doesn’t matter who wears the dress, the point is to make the person look as good as possible.