Too much like a model to model
Mar. 12th, 2008 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emmelinemayI watched Find Me The Face - Plus Sized Girl the other day, as I was ill in bed.
'Find Me The Face' has a fairly simple premise, two model scouts are given a brief by a model agency - 'Plus size girl', or 'Urban boy', then they have a week to find people on the street to come to a casting. Based on the photos, they choose 2 each to have some pro photos and go to a go-see, and then the best one gets a modelling contract. It's one of those trashily awful shows which is utterly watchable and engaging, and you hate yourself for enjoying it, and yet enjoy it you do.
'Plus Sized Girl', however, made me rather angry. The final 4 were a mixed bag, the female model scout had 2 quite pretty but not really model material girls; the male scout had found himself one very pretty but un-outstanding looking girl, and a drop dead gorgeous girl with a super trendy hair cut, perfect skin, 6' tall, china doll face and with a really interesting personality. She looked like a model, she looked like she could be in Vogue.
And there lies her problem, and the reason why she didn't make the final two. She looked too much like an editorial model. Apparently, this is no good for plus sized models.
Plus sized models won't get work if they look like actual models, because plus sized girls work in catalogue modelling, Littlewoods, Evans, Dove adverts. Plus sized models aren't for real modelling, not for high fashion, edgy modelling.
The beautiful and perfectly proportioned young girl could have been a model if she was 6' tall and a size 8, but at 6' tall and a size 16 she was either too big to be a model, or too much like a model to be a model.
This INFURIATES me. It's no good saying 'hey, look, big girls can be beautiful too' if the big girls are limited to high street and catalogue modelling, and the pages of Vogue and the like remain full of 6' tall gazelle like women who need to avoid a strong wind in case they break. All this does in re-enforce that big girls can be pretty, but not exceptional beauties, and that big girls have no place in fashion.
'Find Me The Face' has a fairly simple premise, two model scouts are given a brief by a model agency - 'Plus size girl', or 'Urban boy', then they have a week to find people on the street to come to a casting. Based on the photos, they choose 2 each to have some pro photos and go to a go-see, and then the best one gets a modelling contract. It's one of those trashily awful shows which is utterly watchable and engaging, and you hate yourself for enjoying it, and yet enjoy it you do.
'Plus Sized Girl', however, made me rather angry. The final 4 were a mixed bag, the female model scout had 2 quite pretty but not really model material girls; the male scout had found himself one very pretty but un-outstanding looking girl, and a drop dead gorgeous girl with a super trendy hair cut, perfect skin, 6' tall, china doll face and with a really interesting personality. She looked like a model, she looked like she could be in Vogue.
And there lies her problem, and the reason why she didn't make the final two. She looked too much like an editorial model. Apparently, this is no good for plus sized models.
Plus sized models won't get work if they look like actual models, because plus sized girls work in catalogue modelling, Littlewoods, Evans, Dove adverts. Plus sized models aren't for real modelling, not for high fashion, edgy modelling.
The beautiful and perfectly proportioned young girl could have been a model if she was 6' tall and a size 8, but at 6' tall and a size 16 she was either too big to be a model, or too much like a model to be a model.
This INFURIATES me. It's no good saying 'hey, look, big girls can be beautiful too' if the big girls are limited to high street and catalogue modelling, and the pages of Vogue and the like remain full of 6' tall gazelle like women who need to avoid a strong wind in case they break. All this does in re-enforce that big girls can be pretty, but not exceptional beauties, and that big girls have no place in fashion.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 11:11 am (UTC)That's outrageous. She looks great -- she's not fat, she shouldn't be a plus-sized model, but she *should* be able to be a model.
I was thinking about this the other day as well; when looking through the new Bravissimo catalogue, I notice that they've got a new slightly larger girl modelling for them alongside all the super skinny ones. For me, this completely misses the point, which is not to start including "token fat girls", but to start using models who are a realistic size. Or least a whole range of different sizes! Especially in something like Bravissimo, being aimed as it is at women with big boobs, many of whom might also have big other bits!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 11:23 am (UTC)But I bought a vest-top from them recently, and while it's really nice, and fits well at the bust, it's narrow through the body, and therefore rides up and bunches at the waist on me, as do a lot of tops. I figure I'm at the age now where showing my midriff if a little undignified, at least for work, so I wrote to them, and said I love their clothes but could they consider widening the bottoms of their vests, since a lot of women with curves have curves below the waist as well as above.
They wrote back and told me I'd be glad to know they're making their vests _longer_.
Um... Missing the point much?
Um, sorry, curves-rant!