Glamour's risky gamble on full-sized female models
Filed under: People, Unilever PLC
In September, Glamour magazine received a deluge of letters, e-mails and phone calls. The magazine, which has been known for its support of the high fashion industry, shocked readers and clothing professionals with a small photo that ran on page 194. On first glance, the picture seemed normal, with a smiling, nude model posed comfortably on a bench. However, on a closer look, it quickly became apparent why this image was so revolutionary: at 5'9" and 180 pounds, the model -- Lizzie Miller -- had a body mass index that was slightly above normal.
While many fashion professionals criticized the decision to feature the plus-sized Miller, the magazine's readers were quick to embrace it. In the following issue, Glamour promised to focus more attention on "plus models," committing to show "a wide range of body types" in its pages. To demonstrate its support, the magazine led with a "beautiful bodies" pictorial of average-sized models.
Last month, the release of model Crystal Renn's memoir Hungry once again drew attention to the unrealistic beauty standard set by the fashion industry. After years of trying to keep her weight down to 95 pounds and her waistline at 34 inches, the 5'9", anorexic Renn realized that she was slowly killing herself. Analyzing her eating and exercise habits, she embarked on a healthier lifestyle. Today, she wears a size 12 and has a flourishing career as a plus-size model.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the average American woman aged 20 and up is 5'3" tall, weighs 164.7 pounds, and has a 37.6 inch waist. By comparison, the average model is 5'11" tall and weighs 117 pounds, which places this body type above the 95th percentile for height, but below the 10th percentile for weight, a freakish combination that bears little or no relationship to a healthy human body.
In the fashion business, however, freakish sells. The standard model size ranges between 0 and 4, while the average woman wears a size 14. Most designer fashion houses, however, don't make anything larger than a size 12 and, as Glamour writer Genevieve Field notes, their samples -- the clothes that are used in pictorials -- are rarely larger than a size 4. This makes it almost impossible for fashion mags to feature full-sized women.
This is not a minor inconvenience. While there is a vast market for fashionable clothing in size 14 and up, the fact that fashion houses refuse to make it, advertise it, or promote it means that even Glamour, a leading chronicle of the rag trade, has a hard time altering the face of American fashion. With this in mind, the magazine closed its plus-size manifesto with a promise to support any designer who "manufactures chic clothes we can photograph on full-bodied models."
The irony of the past few years is that, even as Americans have gotten larger, models have gotten smaller, to the point that the average model is now 23 percent skinnier than the average woman. Beyond the dangers of extreme dieting and eating disorders, women's magazines and fashion houses now seem to be working off a business model that is life-threatening. It will be interesting to see if Glamour's decision to gamble on normal body types pays off.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
10-12-2009 @ 10:14AM
gaishia ivory said...
how can I get started?
Reply
10-19-2009 @ 7:15AM
plus style said...
While Glamour has said it is " committing to show "a wide range of body types" in its pages ... the models in its beautiful bodies expo still do not represent multiple body types - all of the woman depicited are tall and proportionately full figured. Where are the petite girls, less well endowed, pear and apple shaped woman ?
Reply
10-12-2009 @ 1:19PM
Kenneth said...
Is this really the answer? http://tinyurl.com/ykrs4ny I hope that this is not just a marketing ploy, women who are for this may be having false hope and setting themselves up for disappointment.
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 8:31AM
lynn said...
i am a professional, own my own business and when i go in the plus size department i am always so disappointed that the lovely clothes i see in the other areas are not available to me. i agree, we need a top designer to acknowledge us.
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 9:00AM
Denise L. Prince said...
I am happy that the Fashion Industry is being provcoative
in marketing to PLUS SIZE. I would recommend coming up
with a diiferennt name than PLUS SIZE. I Know first hand
that even being 5'4" and 95 lbs. I think is too skinny and I
have been there. I am older now and I have alway been curvey ever since I was a teen. I am not built like a BOY
with no boobs and butt, I feel I have it all.
The Fashion Industry has been missing this Goldmine of a
Market for years, continuing to design for Skinny, unrealistic
model like bodies, which mature in time, and time goes by.
Women who are now in their 40's, 50's 60's and beyond do
not want to wear clothes that tell their age, yet the fashion industry dictates or just ignores this HUGE market potential.
I have a mother in law that just turned 90, and she is sick of all the DOWDY clothing magazines that get sent to her,
the Johnny Appleseeds of the world who are marketing towards my age, 40's 50's and I know most of the women
that are my age are still shopping in the Junior Departments
of many stores.
Just give us what we want, which is to stay and look young for as long as possible and we will buy, SIMPLE.
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 9:28AM
Get real said...
Fashion is about the clothes, not the model. If you are looking at the models you've missed the point. Asking designers to try to sell their clothes to a market, that by the way is not their's, by putting their creations on a less than flattering body is rediculous. Fashion is about contour, shape, fit, and lines. Who the hell wants to put their creation on a 5'3" body with a 37.5" waist line. She's a circle, there is no waistline!! Americans need to grow up. There are plenty of designers for larger women. Lane Bryant, Catherines, Ashley Stewart just to name a few. It is your responsibility to find the designer that fits you, it's not the designer's responsibility to try to fit your forever expanding butt or to make you feel better about it.
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 11:35PM
couturegal said...
I agree 100%. The poiint of fashion is to create a fantasy where women are THIN. Why the heck would i want to buy clothes from a designer who uses models that are bigger than me (i wear a size 6-8 and have a waist that is 8 inches smaller than my bust and hips, which are the same size). I have an hourglass figure, but as a woman i think clothes look better on a straighter, flatter figure. Haute couture is not about what the models look like. all the models are is a canvas on which the clothing becomes art. Many runway models do not have pretty faces, but who cares? as long as they can provide a nice, flat background for the clothes to shine, then they have done their job. I have no sympathy for women who whine about being fat and designers don't mke clothes to fit them. How about they lose some weight so that they can fit the designers?
p.s. those dove ads were nauseating. if the point is for you to buy their product so you can look like the model, why would they show ugly and average people? i don't want to pay money to look average. I want to look good.
10-23-2009 @ 12:20PM
Denise Prince said...
Your point is well taken. I do not have an ever expanding Butt. My point is that models do not stay models forever.
Look at the market of ageing women and see how much money is there. There are fashion houses popping up every
where to cater to a more youthful look. By the way, I or my
mother in law do not have an ever expanding butt. Those
stores that you mention we do not shop at and start looking
at a market potential that still exists.
10-13-2009 @ 9:53AM
Kathy said...
Models are ust supposed to be hangers to display the clothes. A skinny model is just a hanger. It doesn't matter what size they are, they're just HANGERS!! Get over it, and try on clothes until you get a fit that flatters your figure, no matter what it looks like.
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 10:21AM
Mary said...
5'3 and 164 lbs. is fat. If that is the average, that is embarrassing. It shows how bad the American diet really is and how inactive a lot of people are.
Less TV watching and more excercise, get rid of the processed foods, and sodas including diet ones. Who wants to look at fat? Being too thin is not good either but it gets old hearing excuses about being fat. I had a friend that was obese, she said it was in her genes and that she ate an average amount of food. Well we went to lunch, she ordered 2 Arizona Iced teas, a huge sandwich, a salad and a dessert. I had ordered one iced tea and one sandwich. Hmmm, wonder why she was fat....
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 9:58AM
Kathy said...
Models are just supposed to be hangers to display the clothes. A skinny model is just a hanger. It doesn't matter what size they are, they're just HANGERS!! Get over it, and try on clothes until you get a fit that flatters your figure, no matter what it looks like.
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 3:33PM
Mary said...
There was a time when a size 14 ...was the perfect size. 34 - 24 - 34 ,back in the 50. 153-140 pds.what was wrong with that???? 5ft 3in. Thats when women looked like women
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 3:37PM
Mary said...
that was wrong 135 to 145 lbs.
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 3:48PM
Trin said...
Discrimination against obese people is still discrimination. New designers need to step up and provide clothing for the bodies that are out there. This is currently not being done, for the most part. It is not a designer's job to mold society into their own ideas of what people should look like.
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 6:27PM
Paul said...
A sleek woman's body is a beautiful thing and looks best when decorated with beautiful clothing. A fat, misshapen woman's body is just as displeasing as a fat man's body is. A fat woman trying to fit into tight jeans with her belly flopping over the waistband looks ridiculous. A fat woman trying to look pretty by wearing too much makeup just makes her look foolish. Both together makes her look like a clown. Dress for your body type and if you're slender flaunt it. If you're fat slim down then dress up. "Do these clothes make me look fat?" "No. Your fat makes you look fat."
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 7:22PM
DAVID said...
I am glad that at least one person, mary, picked up on the trend to praise over-weight women...no wonder the gay community is going strong
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 7:50PM
mike said...
i like women with big breast, small waist, and women gymnasts type of legs and calves.
Reply
10-13-2009 @ 11:57PM
LMCC said...
It takes true talent to design clothing that looks fabulous on normal sized women.
Any hack can design something that looks great on a size 0.
Therein lies the true reason why the fashion "professionals" are throwing a hissy fit, as only those with real talent can hope to succeed in designing for reality.
Reply
10-14-2009 @ 12:29AM
RMLake said...
Bottom line here is that curvy and full bodied means fat?
Reply
10-17-2009 @ 9:44AM
opal said...
The point is that fashion designers design clothing for women to wear.Not to admire on the "hanger" as some designers have referred to models as.To aspire to be better isn't a problem but to aspire to be something as unrealistic as a toothpick model is.If deigners look at their creations as a piece of art,let them hang them in a a museum.
Reply