Often referred to as 'fashion's annoying younger sibling', it is an issue that refuses to go away or to be ignored, and fashionista's all around the globe have quickly separated in to two warring factions - those for the plus-size model, and those against. This kind of extreme divide has come to characterize the debate, and, with no fence to sit on or any grey area to speak of, we are all expected to have an opinion.
Breaking the mould? Plus-size models appearing in V magazine.
In the cut-throat world of fashion, beauty is often synonymous with thinness. You only need to take a cursory glance at the covers of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Tatler and Elle to realize that if you don't fit the clothes, you don't fit in. Even the celebrities adorning the covers of the many and varied glossy magazines have had a few dress sizes airbrushed off from time to time, and all in order to conform to our seemingly immovable concept of 'pretty' .
This may seem strange to those who grew up when Marilyn Monroe was considered the epitome of female bodily perfection. Indeed, for thousands of women growing up in the 1950's, a curvy physique was very much on trend, and many women tried desperately to emulate her fuller figure. Similarly, in Edwardian England, the larger girls were often the first to be snapped up by the aristocratic bachelors and the frequenters of high society.
So where did it all change, and why? To answer that most evasive of questions, we must look at beauty itself, and try to decode this often elusive concept. Ideas of what constitutes beauty change over time, as do our perceptions of it. Whereas we previously lauded voluptuous stars such as Marilyn Monroe for figures that more accurately represented the average woman, the 1960's saw the resurgence of physically-underdeveloped androgyny in the form of British supermodel Twiggy.
Consider the cover for the June edition of British Vogue, featuring the waif-like Alexa Chung. Fashion columnist Liz Jones bemoans how the magazine 'labours the fact that the pipe-cleaner actually eats solids.' She then goes on to point out that Alexa Chung has the body of an adolescent boy, and expresses her disbelief that a woman as frail and fragile as this is being celebrated as the 'girl of the moment'. I agree with her. Alexa has been called 'the new Kate Moss' and is currently presenting on MTV and T4. She boasts a mass following on Twitter and is frequently fawned over in the gossip magazines. However, looking at Alexa's knobbly knees and her painfully thin frame, I do fear for the indsutry if this girl is seen as representative of today's young, fashion-forward girls.
'Girl of the moment' Alexa Chung at a Versace 'do'.
So who's leading the way in the plus-size revolution? Last year, when V magazine put it's 'size issue' on the shelves, it seemed that larger models had at last been granted a place, albeit small, in the lucrative world of high fashion. Then we saw Lizzie Miller, in Glamour magazine, wearing nothing but a G-string and flaunting her natural curves. The reaction to both has, unsurprisingly, been mixed, with the majority of readers taking a 'so what?' stance and only a very small minority expressing their disgust.
America's Next Top Model has experienced a similar kind of success over the years. In cycle 10, plus-size hopeful Whitney Thompson took the title, having beaten off stiff competition from her decidedly thinner peers. So it would seem that the larger girls have succeeded in climbing the first rung at least - but as we all know, the ladder of fashion is as high as it is perilous, and one can't help but wonder whether these small baby-steps towards full acceptance are actually back-handed compliments intended to deceive and appease.
After all, what editor in their right mind would turn down the advertising, controversy and guaranteed peak in sales that goes hand in hand with allowing an 'other' in to the publication? Not to mention the added column inches and the discussion generated from making such a bold statement. Needless to say, the fashion world is characterized by a ruthless forward-thinking mentality that takes no prisoners and often leaves the bigger girls floundering by the wayside.
It is a bizarre, bloated bubble where women only come in two sizes - skinny, or morbidly obese. And while V's celebrated 'size issue' comes as a welcome reprieve in what has been called a 'famine of natural beauty', another more potent question has been thrown in to the mix, like a veritable spanner in the works. Why aren't we seeing women who are neither super-skinny nor super-sized? Where's the middle ground? Again, as is so typical of this debate, there appears to be no grey to occupy.
Of course, there comes a time when we need to sit down, shut up and think about the long-suffering designers in all of this. How unrealistic would it be for an already-squeezed fashion house to conceptualize and manufacture a clothing range to fit every shape and size on the planet? The answer: very. However, even Julian MacDonald OBE - who infamously said that 'all plus-size models are jokes' - has admitted that the best-selling size in his award-winning range for Debenhams is a 16. Then we have stores such as Evans (fronted by plus-size ANTM contestant Toccara Jones) and Bon Marche, as well as hundreds of online outfitters, that boast a fashionable range of womens-wear, exclusively for the larger woman.
Should we see this as a victory in the plus-size battle? Is it fair that curvy women are consigned solely to the high street brands while their skinnier counterparts get to splash out on Versace, Vivienne Westwood and Prada? Probably not, but it's something we'd better take in our stride. As a top London stylist told the Telegraph, 'I think all women want to see images of healthy girls in shop windows. But realistically I don't think many women aspire to a size 18 either.' She seems to be implying that we can't expect the plus-size revolution to hit all areas of the fashion world, and that we need to be very careful when defining precisely what we mean when we say 'plus-size'. For many girls today, curves equals unhealthy.
Health is a controversial corner stone of the debate, and is summarily used by both sides to belittle and degrade the other. When Luisel Ramos died of malnutrition mere seconds after stepping off the catwalk, it instantly became fashionable for the larger girls to play the 'you're anorexic' card at almost every available opportunity. They seemed to want to capitalize on our deep-seated fears and suspicions - namely, that the size-zero models walking the shows in Milan and Paris were sending out an image of gross bodily harm and fragility to the young girls at home.
They may have a point - we all want a happy medium for our children - but it quickly got tired. Sadly, it is still these size-zero girls who define our cultural beauty aesthetic. They have often been dubbed 'lollipops wrapped in fur and cashmere', and you only need to look at the way young girls are treating their bodies today to gauge just how big an impact this is having on ordinary women.
But is it fair to say that the stick-thin model is an insult to 'true' womanhood and femininity? Are they the victims of eating disorders, or were they just born that way? Are they damaging self-esteem, or are they solely the designer's creative vision and prerogative? I fear that the answers to these salient questions will remain indefinite for as long as the debate rages on, but there are a few final things to consider.
How big is big enough? And when does plus-size, in a profoundly overweight population, become as distressingly perturbing an image as size-zero? Just how big does a model have to be before she represents some ever-changing vision of what a 'real woman' should look like? Needless to say, there are quite a few more curves in the road ahead for the plus-size model.
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