From Zero To Zaftig In Under Five Minutes
For the past 30 years, I have seen fashion models get thinner, and teenagers get heavier. It is such a strange dichotomy in our culture. We are concerned about girls who are too young to worry about dieting, who are still developing, and who starve themselves to look like celebrities and models. In the meantime, the mass producers of clothing have to keep making bigger and bigger sizes for our growing girths.
The other dichotomy is that our men still moon over former stars like Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren. Both embodied the concept of zaftig. They were the ultimate in feminine pulchritude. Young men who fantasize about women like them must feel strange as they regard the present offerings of starved-looking models who have no curves in traditional places, such as Italy. Do they feel a subconscious guilt, as if they may have questionable taste in women?
Esquire Magazine has fashion ads featuring beautiful male models. These guys are healthy, trim, and muscular. They fill out a suit, or a pair of jeans very nicely. I am not too old to appreciate the view. Marie Claire features three times the fashion layouts of Esquire, and every female model has measurements that match the circumference of a cigarette, and thighs that could fit in a bathtub faucet. I'm surprised we don't hear more about the disappearance of fashion models down sink drains. Maybe no one thought to look there when one disappeared, or didn't answer her phone for a few days. She was probably clinging to a hairball, and barely escaped with her life as she climbed the slippery slope up the pipes.
Miranda Frum, Chase producer at Sun News, writes about her teen years, and her desire to become a high-fashion model. Despite her lanky frame, and her above average height, she didn't meet the weight requirements of the top agencies. At 115 pounds, they advised her to look into plus-size modeling! Her question is, why are agents still pushing the size zero?
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