This Is Not A Size 8
Topshop was forced to remove ads featuring the mode above after a bunch of anorexia support groups got together and blasted the new ad. Topshop took down the ad, but the head of the company says the woman above is a healthy size 8. WTF is that guy smoking? I understand that British sizes are different than US sizes, but a British 8, is what, like a 4 or something? No way. I have no doubts the model is a very lovely teenager, but do we want teenagers to try and look like her? The company refused to take any other images of her off the site and insisted the woman is healthy. They are going to look like idiots if the woman ends up in the hospital or admits she has an eating disorder.
Most of the clothes that I've had to buy this summer (because I can't squeeze into last summer's shorts) have been a size 8, and I look NOTHING like this model. True, I'm buying American 8s, but surely there can't be that much difference. Even back when I was a size 4, I didn't look nearly as thin as this girl. She doesn't look healthy. Of course we also don't know how much photoshopping has been done to the photo either.
ReplyDeleteA UK size 8 is like an American size 6, but still...that dress looks awfully baggy on her, as if she could go down a couple of sizes.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird that a UK company would have problems with showing too-skinny models. It has always seemed like the British media accepts a wider variety of looks than American media has. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe it's changed, somehow.
I vary between a 2 and a 4 and my waist is probably about the size of her hips.
ReplyDeleteIf that's a true picture, that poor girl needs medical care. And that's one butt-ugly dress, too.
ReplyDeleteThis model is frighteningly thin. Photoshopping is probably part of it, but nevertheless I don't understand the concept the fashion industry has been shoving down our throats for years that we should strive to look like a holocaust survivor to be stylish.
ReplyDeleteI'll be the first to acknowledge I know absolutely nothing about women's sizes and how they relate to physical size, except that I know bigger number equals larger size. Beyond that, I'm completely clueless.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, even I realize there's no way in God's Green Earth that poor child is anything more than a walking stick figure.
Photo shop or not, if she weighs more than 75 lbs, I'll be utterly floored.
And there's no way in hell you're going to convince me, someone who's completely ignorant about these things, that 75 lbs equals a British size 8 (or American size 4).
Really this is a surprise after Kate famously losing two sizes and getting heaps of praise?? You reap what you sow, UK.
ReplyDeleteProportions are all wrong.
ReplyDeleteMust be a space alien.
Yuck. I have daughters that are 9 and 11. I've explained to them that what you see in a magazine is very rarely the truth as far as pictures. It came about over the Ralph Lauren model that was fired.
ReplyDeleteI make a conscience effort to NOT say things like, "I'm so fat" or "I need to lose weight" around my kids because they get enough of that crap from other directions. Now, if I could just get my mom and my husband to quit. My husband is worse than any woman.
I will show this picture to my kids and then we'll have a discussion about what is healthy.
I just went to their site. The girl looks a bit healthier. But definitely not a US size 8. In any case, those models look like mannequins! Very weird looking, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteWell, different body types DO exist. I think there's a tendency to shame girls who fall on either end of the weight spectrum, and it makes me cringe when a person is automatically labeled anorexic just because she's thinner-than-most. But the girl in that photo? I'd say there's about a 400 percent chance that she suffers from a disorder.
ReplyDeleteMost models take between a 0 to a 2, no matter how tall they are -- I don't know why the industry just isn't honest about it. I also don't even see the point anymore in criticizing the fashion industry for promoting anorexia, because the people who run that industry do not CARE. If it bothers you, avoid magazines and stop paying attention to glossy advertisements, I guess. They'll never STOP promoting anorexia, and I get the feeling that people like Anna Wintour just get a big chuckle when all the ~fatties~ get their feelings hurt.
A few years ago, I was approached by an agent. Oh, and some of you can quit your eyerolling; this happened YEARS ago, for one thing, and I'm not claiming that Eileen Ford herself plucked me from obscurity in a milkshake shop or some shit. I was folding sweaters at The Limited and some creepy dude handed me his card (with the hope/intention of seeing me naked someday, probably).
Anyway, I went to the agency -- size-6, 120-pounds and all -- and they told me that I'd have no future in the business unless I dropped down to a size 2 and weighed close to 100. I'm 5'7." I told them to go fuck themselves. Sorry, but I like cheese. And bread. And beer. And self-respect.
That model in that ad is paid well to be unhealthy. I guess that my sympathy is reserved for the young women around the world who *aren't* aware how grotesque these models look in real life -- before photoshop erases their knife-sharp clavicles and makes their chests less concave, places softer angles and rosiness in their cheeks, shiny strands of hair on their heads instead of unhealthy follicles, makes their eyes appear bright instead of hollow. It doesn't just make models appear thinner: it makes them appear more ALIVE.
It's all fucking faker than hell. Pretty soon, they'll just skip the whole scouting process, do away with humans, and just devise computer-generated images to hawk mascara and cars and whatnot. They're already more than halfway there.
And, yes, that dress is completely hideous.
Yowza!
ReplyDeleteNow THAT is far too thin, even I'll jump on board that train. It makes my heart ache for her. She looks so... brittle. Where are her caregivers?!
One more thing... just went on the site, and the girls all look so slothy. What is with that anyhow? Would it kill to crack a smile?
ReplyDeletei dinnered with the photoshop head of french Marie Claire and this guy has some awful stories about this job(a 15 years old model used as picture of anti-aging beauty products or how he hides her skeletical form):the fashion world is hypocrite
ReplyDeleteOK, I am going to type this as I finish up my Jack in the Box lunch, and it will, I'm sure, get people riled up. But it's something no one ever really talks about. The majority of fashion designers, worldwide, are gay men. The truth is, these men may SAY they love the female form (*cough* Tom Ford *cough*), but they don't. They don't like boobs and hips because they don't find them attractive. And hey, that's their prerogative. But, as a result of this, they design clothes that look best on someone with no curves. So models are forced to diet away any curves in order to fit this "ideal" female form the designers demand. Female designers, who for the most part weren't all that prolific until the '80s and '90s (yes, I know about Chanel and Mary Quant, etc.), go along with this.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't meant to be gay-bashing at all. It's just what my observations were as a teen model who eventually had to stop modeling because my boobs would not be denied.
Also, that girl looks emaciated and that dress looks like a Simplicity pattern circa 1978. That is all.
Honestly, I can't comment on the pic because it won't load on my computer. I think my computer is biased!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you know what bothers me? That they make "plus" sizes for little girls. I am what they call a "plus" size woman and I can't remember the adjective they used for my "plus" sized clothes when I was a girl, but WHY DOES THERE HAVE TO BE LABELS LIKE THAT for little girls? Why can't they just used the sizes???? Why do the larger sizes need to be labled "plus" for little girls?
My sister, who was a year older than me but grew up slimmer and shorter than I, often dressed alike and my mom would put our names on the labels for simplicity sake, especially when our size difference was within one or two and looking at the clothes you couldn't tell the size. I remember being at Disneyland and our tags were hanging out and two boys laughed and said (loudly) what our names and sizes were. I was mortified because my size had the "chubby" or whatever it was added to it.
@Texshan, I co-sign what you said 10,000%.
ReplyDeleteThat's not to say that a gay man is incapable of recognizing beauty in femininity, but I DO think that gay men tend to design clothes to fit boyish, androgynous figures. A heterosexual man would probably be more likely to design clothes which enhance the physical characteristics that symbolize fertility -- i.e., hips and boobs.
And from what I've seen, most female fashion designers aren't exactly clamoring to embrace *their* curves, so it doesn't surprise me that they're also crafting outfits that would fit most thirteen year-old boys better than fortysomething women.
Uh. Are there ANY hetero male fashion designers? Armani? Doesn't he have a wife? She could just be some fabulously-attired beard, though. I realize this.
She's close to 6 feet tall and only 18 years old. She hasn't developed completely.
ReplyDeleteCodie Young
Height: 178 cm
Bust: 79 cm
Waist: 58 cm
Hips: 84 cm
Exactly KidSis.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, this model looks like she's having trouble holding her damn head up. Must be weak from lack of food.
She looks more like a size minus-8.
ReplyDeleteYes I am am a american size 8 to 10. I am 5'7 abd 150 pounds. Im very athletic and 22% body fat, but working out 2 to 3 hours a day puts on muscles..play on soccer leagues, do triathilons androck climber. The point of this is I am a 8, look nothing like that and think I would be a better role model than her. I dont look like giselle, I look like Pink..lol
ReplyDeleteLike Lafawnduh said, I'm willing to accept that she may be a very tall teenager whose body fat hasn't caught up to her height.
ReplyDeleteI get the ickies about assuming that someone has an eating disorder.
I said something similar on the Kate post the other day, but this just shows my point: I know many girls who are naturally very, very slim. Even though they eat plenty of food, they just don't gain weight. High metabolism or whatever (I am COMPLETELY UNFAMILIAR WITH THIS PHENOMENON). But even though they have tiny waists and tiny thighs, they don't look unhealthy - just small.
ReplyDeleteI also know girls who are very, very skinny, and the reason for it is that they don't eat enough. They say they "aren't hungry" because "they're stressed" or "depressed" or "was so busy they forgot to eat". With these girls, you can TELL that they're supposed to be bigger. They look like this model...emaciated, tired, hungry, lifeless. Bones are poking out. There seems to be a risk of sudden and unannounced breakage.
Those are the girls that should EAT SOMETHING.
Also, models are skinny because their job is to be a coathanger.
@Ida - I know what you are saying. I have a couple of friends that get called that quite a bit b/c they are super thin but they def. do NOT suffer from eating disorders.
ReplyDeleteThis girl though. Yikes...is that her shoulder bones poking out on that dress?
EXACTLY what Texshan and Ida said!!!
ReplyDeleteI have always felt this way about gay designers and their ideals who would wear their clothes.
Also if you've ever seen an episode on various seasons from Project Runway when the designers are forced to work with average sized people they go BESERK and it usually results in clothing that does not look good. Even in normal episodes you can really tell every designer is soooo in love and obsessed with the print or fabric that they could give two fucks if the model is comfortable or really what her opionin is.
I think that designers often create clothing to be art and thus the model is but a easel holding up the artowork, and thus, just as inconsquential AND I also think that, despite what fashion inclined people protest about fashion being this big thing and all, if its not wearable or comfortable or even applicable to life, and those who don the outfits are forced to have eating disorders and drug habits to fit into said clothing- then fuck the fashion industry.
I just went to the site. Same girl but she is more heavily layered now.
ReplyDeleteIt's all the same: "Plus-sized." "Husky." "Chubby." In other words, "Shame on you for being 'fat.'" Fuck 'fashion'.
ReplyDeleteand Maja- I STILL say Kate is bordering on eating disorder levels...she was thin/atheletic in the first place and THEN went on that Dukan diet to lose another 2 dress sizes. That is not a woman who naturally is thin, that is a thin woman who wanted to diet down to more thiness than her body was already comfortably at.
ReplyDeleteI thought models had to be thin as heck because they are really just glorified coat hangers?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking it's a combination of the model being young, undeveloped and naturally thin + Photoshop out the wazoo + possibly an eating disorder (but I hope not for her sake). It's been shown many, many times that a perfectly attractive woman or girl can be 'shopped until she barely looks human, and that's the look they want for magazines and other media. I don't want to start skinny-shaming thin woman any more than I want them mouthing off to me because I'm fat, and I've known plenty of women who really are that thin naturally, so I don't want to pick on them as much as I'd like the media to stop going to such extremes with the Perfect Body Ideal, since it's becoming more and more divorced from reality even where thin women are concerned.
ReplyDelete@Texshan, it's funny you said that about that dress being a 1979 Simplicity pattern. I'm pretty sure it is. My grandmother who will be 96 in two months has always made her on clothes. For the last 30-35 years, she has a pantsuit pattern and a dress pattern. That looks JUST like every one of her dresses made from that pattern. On a little old lady, it looks charming. Not so much on a young girl/walking lollipop.
ReplyDeleteSorry, that should have said "made her own clothes" above.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of points that people have already brought up, and I have an additional thought on why everyone has to be so frightening looking.
ReplyDeleteThe whole production side behind clothes and runway shows requires that everyone be basically interchangeable, I would think. And if everyone is the same body fat of 1%, the biggest size variation is going to come from difference in bone and ribcage size, which isn't going to be that much if everyone is similar heights. I'm sure it's easier to make clothes that fit a range of skeleton sizes than clothes that address the huge range of ways clothes fit people who might have the same measurements, but their meat sits different.
That explains the runway models, doesn't explain why we're celebrating that in everything and pushing younger and younger girls to eating disorders.
Thanks, Jasmine and Ida. I didn't want to come off as "blaming teh gays" or anything, but it's a not-so-secret secret that most designers see models as a necessary evil. They even refer to models as "walking clothes hangers." They don't want lumps or bumps "ruining" the lines of their clothes. Unfortunately for them, most women have these "lumps and bumps."
ReplyDeleteStraight male designers, on the other hand, usually design clothes average-build women can wear -- Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Roberto Cavelli, etc. all make "wearable" clothes.
I'm LOLing, RJ!
ReplyDeleteJasmine, totally agree with you - Kate falls into the second category IMO.
ReplyDeleteTexshan, I never thought of it that way but I think you are onto something. I believe Anna Wintour aides this mentality also, she is bone thin herself and I think she could stand to gain a few pounds but she'd rather cut off one of her arms instead I bet. I do believe clothes look better on thin people, the fabric hangs nicer but the world is not made up of that body type for the most part. Why not design clothes to look great on normal sized women? What a concept but these so called high end designers cannot do it if their lives depended on it.
ReplyDeleteIda is right, the fashion industry does not care if they perpetuate eating disorders. They sell clothing well because they display them on models that are meant to look as close to clothes hangers as possible. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but we forget that the industry is trying to sell something just like everyone else. They don't care, and personally, I don't care that they don't care.
ReplyDeleteI completely understand a parent's side to the argument when they say the media sets a bad example with thin models, etc. But what about places like Taco Bell, who, to my dismay, had that atrocious d ad campaign with "The Fourth Meal." Who the f needs a FOURTH MEAL?! Three is MORE than enough. I say they're just as responsible for the over-eating, obese mentality in this country as the fashion industry is for eating disorders. And in their defense, when did the fashion industry ever say they were role models? Never. And even worse, places like Taco Bell and McDonald's (with glutinous 1,000-calorie meals) do cater to children quite a bit with their happy meals and free toys and super hero movie cross-marketing. Everyone is guilty.
But in the end, don't you think it's better to talk to your kids about how this is not the norm and that it is not something they should strive for, as opposed to expecting businesses/the media to do this for you? Being a parent is difficult, yes, but don't expect every single industry to be babysitters either. Not everything your child is exposed to in the media is responsible for raising them. You are. Just the same, one should teach their children how to eat well and not have a (mother of GOD) FOURTH MEAL.
When are we supposed to eat a fourth meal?????? LOL
ReplyDelete^ EXACTLY! :)
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting discussion this has been! I had no idea that a fourth meal had been invented already, I just used to call that a snack...
ReplyDeleteAn article about the model in question, who denies being anorexic: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/confidential/codie-young-loves-food-and-is-definitely-not-a-danger-to-anorexics/story-e6frf96o-1226093724312
ReplyDeleteSimplicity pattern without a doubt! I thought everyone had forgotten about those. Is anyone really going to buy this dress? I think not! Kate should know better. I guess this happened as she was off on her honeymoon.
ReplyDeleteEnty: FYI the brand director of Topshop is a woman, not a man.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I'm not denying this girl is skinny, there's more than a marginaldifference between US and UK size 8's (i.e. UK size 8 = US Size 4). Just saying...