Everybody Vogue. Well, really just the thin people.

April 2, 2002 5:36 PM

Everybody Vogue. Well, really just the thin people. Vogue Magazine gets a tongue-lashing from Slate. Seems the fashion mag attempted a "body diversity" issue, but their idea of a large-size model is a size 8. Excerpt: "If "tall" and "short" and "pregnant" are body types, and Minnie Driver is "curvy," there's no need to admit the existence of the bottom-heavy, let alone try to dress the poor bastards."
posted by GaelFC (21 comments total)

Another related link: Kate Betts, former editor of Harper's Bazaar, confesses that she kept Renee Zellweger off the cover when Zellweger did Bridget Jones' Diary because she felt the actress was too heavy. Yet at the same time, Betts was struggling with her own weight demons.

(NY Times link, free registration required.)
posted by GaelFC at 5:40 PM on April 2, 2002

Interesting. I thought she's have kept her off simply because she didn't look very good. Zellweger was nice in Empire Records, but she started to look really haggard at the time of BJD. I'm not sure if this was deliberate to fit into character, but I think not. Her size isn't an issue, IMHO, but her appearance at the time just wasn't cover material.
posted by wackybrit at 5:48 PM on April 2, 2002

It's Vogue for crying out loud. Vogue exists to sell expensive clothes, no other reason.* As always, the sentiments expressed in this article bear little if any relation to reality.Magazines think Renee Zelweger is too heavy. So what, millions of people flock to see her movies and millions of men(and women too)adore her. Thin is what every man wants? How come Camryn Mannheim,Lesley Boone and Anna Nicole Smith(three of the prettiest women in the world IMO)have such legions of admirers?
Don't let a bunch of designers and advertisers with an agenda dictate how you feel about yourselves, people.

*It's glossy pages are also excellent for de-seeding weed.....or so I'm told.
posted by jonmc at 5:52 PM on April 2, 2002

*It's glossy pages are also excellent for de-seeding weed.....or so I'm told.

i've heard this too.. *wink*wink*

puga
posted by PugAchev at 6:04 PM on April 2, 2002

uh-oh, I sense another MeFi "fat" thread about to explode, the merits of exercise and good diet will be extolled, the genetic arguments will be hauled out, dusted off, and into the fray they will all charge, only to be obscured by time and apathy...
.
.
.
until the next "fat" thread...
posted by jkaczor at 6:13 PM on April 2, 2002

VOGUE deserves some credit. I am told it is the only decent fashion magazine out there...cosmo/marie claire etc. focus on other crap...I AM TOLD
posted by Settle at 6:14 PM on April 2, 2002

I watched "Some Like It Hot" the other day. Marilyn Monroe was in it. Damn sexy woman, hot, hot, hot!

And you know what? Ol' Norma Jean wasn't bulimic puker with ribs sticking out, twiggy little ankles, and an ass that's fallen off.

She was, if not a chunky woman, a healthy woman.

The scrawny bints that mince across our screens these days look positively sickly in comparison!
posted by five fresh fish at 6:52 PM on April 2, 2002

Settle, give In Style or Vanity Fair the once over and see if you don't think they have a little less polarizing content than Vogue. I can't wait for In Style's Oscar gowns edition!
posted by Lynsey at 8:42 PM on April 2, 2002

lynsey: thanks for the advice, but I DON'T READ VOGUE. MY POST WAS BASED ON HEARSAY. I LIKE GIRLS. I AM NOT GAY.
posted by Settle at 8:50 PM on April 2, 2002

But Vogue is full of girls . . . .
posted by JanetLand at 8:59 PM on April 2, 2002

Am I the only one that actually saw this issue? I read it tonight at the health club - there was nothing else on the rack.

The women they picked for "plus size" (my term, not theirs) were some model who's pretty big and Nigella Lawson of "Nigella Bites". I read the Nigella interview, where she said repeatedly that she was a "stickout tummy" person and that she didn't care what others think. She does some dieting, but for her, not for others. She said that she gets upset when someone compares thin-ness to beauty in front of her daughter.

Read it, then harsh. At least Vogue featured different body types.
posted by Whistlepig at 9:11 PM on April 2, 2002

From what I can gather (and this may be entirely non-credible) Marilyn Monroe was pregnant during part of the shooting of Some Like it Hot and reached a whopping 140lbs.

Hardly chunky.

When presenting an article that seems to pride itself on representing various shapes of women, it seems utterly ignorant to ignore truly full figured bodies.
posted by lynda at 9:14 PM on April 2, 2002

Settle, I was casting no aspersions on your life style choices! I've seen several men checking out girl-oriented fashion magazines because, well, there are girls in them! Many beautiful, some scantily clad, all gorgeously made up luscious (even if awfully skinny) girls. So have your informants look over In Style or Vanity Fair and see if they approve, if you prefer not to see for yourself.
posted by Lynsey at 9:21 PM on April 2, 2002

I WILL DO JUST THAT
BLESS YOU MY SON
posted by Settle at 9:31 PM on April 2, 2002

Sort of on the same subject, there recently was a Detroit Free Press anti-fat op-ed that seemed to suggest that fat people shouldn't have decent clothes in larger sizes as it just encourages them. I sense a conspiracy here...perhaps the DFP has connections to the polyester industry?

Until recently, like the last eight or ten years, fashion sucked for the fat girls. I remember buying things I thought were interesting when I was in high school that were really just amazingly appalling...oh wait, it was the 80's. But there were no Lane Bryant or Avenue stores in my area back then, so I ordered everything from catalogs...catalogs with thin models with plus size clothing hanging off their angular frames. I can say with complete honesty that a paisley denim suit does not hang off the big girl the same way it hangs on a size 8. Now at least I can pick up a magazine like Vogue, see something interesting, and probably find something similar in my size, in an actual store, and have the option of wondering why anyone would think that camouflage print was stylish for anyone but a hardcore gun nut. Though I recently bought a pair of purple velvet pants that are just fabulous, honey.

So, my personal clotheshorseyness aside, I've always wondered why the fashion industry was willing to ignore the many girls like me who love clothes and have wads of cold hard cash in our hands wondering why we had to spend yet another season clothed in the sweaty, itchy, badly-designed world of man-made fabrics for the fat ladies. Hello, capitalism? Have I got a deal for you...

And don't even get me started on shoes.

btw, Mariln Monroe weighed 140 when she made Some Like it Hot, and she was 5'6". I read somewhere that she'd be about a size 12 according to today's sizes. Renee Zewelleger was also a size 12 for Bridget Jones.
posted by kittyloop at 9:46 PM on April 2, 2002

I thought Renee Zellweger looked totally cute in Bridget Jones' Diary, and the only time she looked "too heavy" was when she was in the too-tight bunny costume (which worked out fine, anyway).

In fact, she lost too much weight after finishing the movie, and looked haggard and unhealthy compared to the way she did in the movie.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:52 PM on April 2, 2002

i don't know what some of you were talking about at the beginning, but zellweger is delicious, with or without the bjd weight.... probably more so, with..
posted by lotsofno at 7:37 AM on April 3, 2002

Didn't method man and redman have something to say about this?

something about it being about the performance?
posted by Settle at 9:36 AM on April 3, 2002

I DON'T READ VOGUE. MY POST WAS BASED ON HEARSAY. I LIKE GIRLS. I AM NOT GAY.

Methinks the man protests too much...
posted by crunchland at 9:48 AM on April 3, 2002

Actually, seems to me that if you're gay, you're more likely to read GQ.
posted by bingo at 11:06 AM on April 3, 2002

Forget Vogue, In Style and Vanity Fair. Real men choose Glamour! Just don't let your mom catch you.
posted by ahughey at 12:16 PM on April 3, 2002