Supermodeldoms of the past and of today and their standards.

I expect the biggest reason to want to shift the standard of beauty in America is because many are older and fatter.

Well, I’ll speak first for myself on this one. I’m about to turn 65 and I stay thin by exercising daily and eating a pretty healthy diet. So my reasons for wanting a shift in standards is not motivated by what I look like. As a matter of fact, I’d prefer not having a standard ideal of beauty. I find beauty in many diverse things and looks, from colorful sunsets to grimy, shadowed streets, from thin to larger bodies, from younger to old.

 

I suspect reasons for wanting a shift are as much about lessening the demands on models to all look the same and to often do damage to their bodies in order to appear unnaturally thin.

But you didn’t address why you believe advertisers and agencies conspired to make emaciation the standard for beauty.

 

“I find beauty in many diverse things and looks, from colorful sunsets to grimy, shadowed streets, from thin to larger bodies, from younger to old.”

 

Sure, and that is the case for most, which is why I find your assertion that there is a conspiracy to promote emaciation as the standard for beauty implausible.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Moving On

Food for thought.....

Heroin chic was a look popularized in mid-1990s fashion and characterized by pale skin, dark circlesunderneath the eyes, very skinny body, dark red lipstick and angular bone structure. The look, characterised by emaciated features and androgyny, was a reaction against the "healthy" and vibrant look of models such as Cindy Crawford and Claudia Schiffer. A 1996 article in the Los Angeles Times stated that the fashion industry had "a nihilistic vision of beauty" that was reflective of drug addiction.[1]

 

Heroin chic - Wikipedia

Edited September 17, 2018 by Moving On

The reason I believe it is because I've done some research on the subject, from an array of different sources. There are many reasons given throughout the articles I've read, arguments and counterarguments, which is a good way to go about researching a subject, but the one I keep coming back to in more and more research often rests not with what the public wants but with what fashion designers, editors, execs, and agencies want to portray. Mind you, it's not the ONLY thing, and audience preference probably plays some role, too, but not a major one.

 

Here's one good article on the subject. If you google, you'll find others if you're interested.

 

Former Vogue editor: The truth about size zero

I think you are discounting the drug culture influence.

Calvin Klein played it to the hilt.

Catered to a trend.

 

The first thing I notice is the eyes anyway, so what do I know.

My Wife of 37 years and I find no end to the amusement offered up in the current political context of sex.

Hard to take anyone seriously anymore.

Even the entertainment of it all regularly drifts into white noise.....

In any case, my original point in this thread was to call out the statement that "nobody likes looking at anorexic or overweight people." Heroin chic or any other theory of fashion design doesn't make that statement ok, and we've come far afield from it. I've been called a "snowflake" for my sensitivity about that sentiment. If being a snowflake is what it takes to have simple human decency about how others look, I'll wear the title as a badge of honor. Besides which, snowflakes are quite elegant and beautiful, most of the time, except when they pile up over your car which you then have to spend hours shoveling out.

I think everyone's position has been made clear, and little remains to be gained but unpleasantness.

The fact of the matter is that clothing tends to fit tall and slim people better than it does chunky and short people. Sorry if you are chunky and short, but that's just a fact of life. The thing about tall, slim people is that in most cases, they make clothing look good no matter what the style. The average guy/gal might not have that type of flexibility. Designers of clothing want to get the best bang for the buck. Its the same with retail manufacturers, they want the best shelves that will attract the attention of a large number of buyers. They certainly do not want their product on the bottom shelf. Same thing goes in the fashion industry, beauty attracts and maybe it might not last(especially with fashion Models), but initially it does attract the buyers. The Designers are not interested in "Inclusion", or preference in body types, they want that initial "BANG" that will attract buyers to their products. Edited September 18, 2018 by hjoseph7

The fact of the matter is that clothing tends to fit tall and slim people better than it does chunky and short people.

 

Thats not completely true. An ordinary person, including people of below average height or with a non-ideal body type can look great provided they wear clothes that fit their particular body structure. Its no wonder that most clothes available in the stores don't fit these people, because most clothes are designed with taller people in mind. That doesn't mean, their body types are not suitable to look great in attire. There are plenty of resources on the internet for fashion ideas for short or heavier people. There are even online stores specializing in clothes that fit non-ideal body types. Its a sad stereotype that has been there for a long time.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Supriyo

There are many beautiful models that carry weight and don't confirm with the tall, skinny or emaciated look. There is also the whole question of who defines beauty and what does it consist of. To me its the whole person and how they translate to a visual photograph, not a check list of traits

 

I've assisted on a couple of shoots for fun, and I 've shot one fashion show for students. The students designed and made the cloths and they had local professional models. 3 of them were heavy set women and I thought they were gorgeous, with well fitted garments. The thing I appreciated and its a factor that unless you've been around it you may not realize is that professional models know how to pose. That really made me realize that fashion modeling is an art and skill and both the men and women work hard at it. People in this thread have said, they don't care about the line of the body or an arm, but if you do that work you will understand its importance. A good model is very important to the finished photography. They will know what poses are most flattering for them, and they tend to move fluidly from one pose to the next. All I had to do is wait til they set, click and move to the next position, click and so on. I liked it and really learned a lot by doing it.

People in this thread have said, they don't care about the line of the body or an arm, but if you do that work you will understand its importance.

Just in case you’re thinking of my first post, I said that talking about the relative shapeliness of the arms of models bothers me. That’s different from a photographic concern for the line of a body or arm in a fashion shoot or model portrait. The first is the setting up of an ideal for what a shapely body part for models is, the second is a concern for composition and line in any given photo. I’ve taken enough pictures of people to know that I can create a sensual photo with interesting lines of all different kinds of bodies. Any arm can appear shapely in a photo if you know what you’re doing.

The fashion industry and the models they use to advertise (largely high fashion) clothing is fickle and fleeting; society's self imagining is driven by marketing.

There's a disconnect between both and reality.

Beauty is 100% subjective, and has nothing to do with either of the above, per se.

 

As for today's models VS those of yesteryear.... it's always interesting to view good looking people of any era, if that's what you're into. Having worked behind the scenes at fashion week in NYC, I can tell you that there is damn little "fun" involved, and a heck of a lot of hard, steady, fast-paced work. On the street, in daylight, it's easy to tell the working models from the general population- they are the ones who look tired, are wearing zero make up, and their eyes and faces have a certain look that comes from having make-up applied, scrubbed off, and reapplied multiple times a day for 2 weeks.

 

High fashion models, in the end, are people. Like everyone else, they too, have a "home life". It may not match ours exactly, but at home & on their own time, they do much the same as anyone else.

How times have changed...

 

 

and from a man's point of view...

 

Times will change, traditions will be lost as others are born, stars will fade while others will rise, old theories will make way for new discoveries... and Tess Holiday will never, ever be a beautiful model.

I’ll take Raquel Welch, Susan Oliver, Donna Reed, or Barbara Eden for my “standard”. Edited September 21, 2018 by Moving On