Skeletal model used in Boden mailshot

[boobashka]

Has anyone else noticed the model in the recent Boden mailshot? She looks unhealthily thin. I thought we were moving away from 'heroin chic,' but it seems to be creeping back into mainstream marketing. It feels irresponsible for a brand like Boden to promote such a frail aesthetic as 'aspirational.'

She just buys them in a size 24? I don’t need to see a top on a size 8 person with the exact same dimensions as me to want to buy that top. I see a top I like the design of and I buy it in my size. Size 24 people are not a homogeneous body type, they will all carry weight differently and the variables around body composition are bigger the heavier you are, so I don’t really buy the argument that morbidly obese people need to see what clothes look like on other morbidly obese people before they can buy them.

I think she's just tall and slim and some commercial models are a little more solid now, which is also good. You even get some who are of a middling height and size sometimes and not at either end of the scale.

Here is a model from the 1950s when apparently models all had curves.

It was very obviously just cope from them. Who wouldn't want to lose weight, be healthier, and look better if it was easy to do?

The waist of the first model looks physically impossible.

normal
/ˈnɔːml/

adjective
1.
conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

noun
1.
the usual, typical, or expected state or condition.

HTH.

They’re selling clothes. Clothes look better on slim models.

Of course it was, no one wants to be fat, if you can make yourself slim and healthy , using a prescription medication that’s safe and globally prescribed for obesity, then most people would chose that and health rather than on no I just love being obese, the most deadly condition in society.

Of course they’re not a homogeneous body type.

But the fact is you can see a variety of size 8 bodies on every website, advert, shop front already.

So quite why it would be a problem someone else having the same opportunity for their size would be a problem is beyond me. It can only be based on the perspective that your size is better somehow.

I wouldn’t bother looking on the Topshop website - their clothes don’t fit me. I’m not offended that they don’t, I’m not upset that the models of their clothes evidently can wear those clothes, in much the same way I don’t know why you’d be bothered that women of a size you’re not are wearing clothes that you don’t want to buy.

Fat people need tights too 🤷🏻‍♀️

And having been obese myself (not morbidly but a good 5 stone overweight) before, I can’t say that seeing clothes modelled on someone else equally obese would have made me any more likely to buy them. In fact I probably would have been put off because if I’m being truthful, clothes will always look far better to me being modelled by someone of healthy weight. I didn’t need an obese model to show me that when I bought a new top, I would still look fat because I was fat.

I like it when companies use a few different models per item and give their size, so you can form a view on how the item will look on you. Not that I can afford/justify Boden nowadays, the quality isn’t there and some of items …. aren’t for me!

Well said!

It’s okay that you didn’t like your body bigger, and didn’t want to see others who were your size because of that.

Some of us don’t mind our size and are comfortable in our overweight bodies, and like that companies exist who openly and unapologetically cater for them.

Thinner people do already have most other shops. Seems unfair to me for them to then be bothered about the very few who are trying to appeal to the other end of that market.

Here is a model from the 1950s when apparently models all had curves

The Marilyn Monroe was a modern day size 14 myth. Despite having a 24” waist.

No she was a ten at that point in her life, which would be more a size 4 now.. I don’t think it’s any surprise that humans have got bigger in nearly a century

We can disagree but I don’t think body extremes at either end should be used for marketing. Not talking about people who are size 4 or size 20, but size 38? That’s extreme and not appropriate for advertising. Sell those sizes, sure. But if we don’t give space to anorexic models then we don’t give space to dangerously obese ones either.

She just looks slim. She doesn’t look particularly tall for a model either, about 5ft 8”. Models are slim, some people are naturally slim. We are in the middle of an obesity crisis but I wouldn’t dream of pointing out overweight people. Why can’t we all be allowed to be different. Have you actually seen a person that is skeletal from drugs? Bloody awful thing to compare a healthy young woman to.

A size 12 (US) according to her modelling card.

She has some weight on her thighs. She doesn’t look anorexic to me. Sadly I
know of what I speak.

Tall slim women do look better in most clothes

I don’t think she looks too thin, but her blusher looks ridiculous.

It IS a statement, in that Snag use all sorts of body shapes and sizes on their website - which is brilliant, and actually, they DO manage to give images that cater for every size permeation, up to and including limb loss.

This doesn't pull through into their advertising, which consistently uses the larger end of the body spectrum.

I'm not mad about it, because representation matters and the idea that if something is unhealthy it should be hidden and shameful is only applied to obesity - wine o'clock is lolsy, fatness is a disgrace.

Fat is unhealthy as is underweight.

Those measurements make her a UK 10-12 today.

Did not mean to quote my own post.

She is very ‘slim’, you can see it even though she’s in long loose sleeves and trousers. Those saying she’s a normal size woman are talking balls. Thin chic has never gone away, sadly, most models (and female actors) are too thin, when you see them in real life they look frail and unhealthy.

Most certainly not the case!