to think that size 14 models are NOT plus size they are just NORMAL!

[mamazon]

Most models are around 6ft. for their height being a size 14/16 is perfect for their body.

they aren't "plus size" they just aren't underweight.

I dont think it is a great thing that a magazine has dedicated an issue to plus size models. I find it depressing thaht society has such a scewed vision of beauty that a girl that is in total perfect proportion for her body is considered only beautiful enough for a special fat issue rather than the usual mainstream version.

im actaully getting a bit annoyed at the constant use of the term plus size for normal women. they aren't! I am 6'1 and a size 24/26. I am a plus size person. as in i am outside the normal range for clothing and sizing.
someone with not an inch of excess fat on them isn't.

Now do not get me wrong, i do not want to see more Beth Ditto front covers.
What i want is for the media and fashion industry to stop making normal healthy women feel that they are anything but that. why does it have to be a special healdine grabbing edition of the magazine just because they use women who do not have their ribs poking out of their skin?

'So that's quite obviously the ideal shape for someone who's job mostly involves showing what clothes look like on mannequins that can move.'

Roman, I think this just goes to show that this kind of 'clothes' are not made for people to wear and look nice in. The people are for displaying the garments.

This is completely arse-backwards for those of us who live in the real world and just want to keep warm without scaring the horses.

Fashion as Art is all well and good, but I'd just like to be able to buy some clothes that aren't designed to look good on a boy.

It's your BMI (body mass index) that should count in a discussion on whether someone's size is normal / healthy and not the dress size.

I would say that there should be a minimum BMI for models to ensure that they are sending the right message to women (and men!).

x

Re Bonsoirs comments, surely clothes should be designed to look good on normal size 14 women, and not just the skinny ones? If the fashion houses are saying that the clothes only look good on size 6 women, surely no one of a normal size will want to buy them??

But they're not saying that Flossie. They're hiring as clothes horses people who are going to be able to carry off any outfit. You can't be a 'low-cut tops only' model or a 'hotpants only' model. You'd never get booked.

I've never got the size zero just out of Auschwitz look either, but I can see why around an 8 should be the required size, not 14.

I am destined always to be plus size then if 14 is 'plus' as at my skinniest, looking gaunt and a bit, well, ill really, the smallest I can fit is a 14.

'as normal girls who are tall and a size 14 may grow to think they are "plus size", and the cycle begins again........ '

this.

and:
'I agree there is 'model' size and normal people sizes. '

this.

This is an assumption that someone who is tall and not at least a 14 is not 'normal'. That's just as bad as labelling someone plus-sized or fat, tbh.

There are many people who are quite tall and they are naturally thin. Thin enough to be, say, size 10.

This is not any more 'abnormal' than being larger.

And it's these types of people who tend to get work as models if they seek it.

Romanarama is right. Have you ever seen clothes modelled by someone who is ill-proportioned, NOT large or that, but say, very long torso and shortish legs? Or very short?

They don't look as good as they do on a clothes hanger.

That's just a fact.

Same as, like she said, some people - both big and small - are eating disordered and some are not, whatever their size.

Overeaters, compulsive eaters, bulemics, anorexics. It's all ED.

Yet it seems to be okay to attack people who are on the thinner side of that, but 'fattist' to do so to others who are larger.

I think that's wrong.

And it does damage people who are naturally thin and tall like my niece.

It's made her not appreciate her body because it is tall and thin.

How nice! My niece has been called a 'walking mannequin'. She's an unbelievably clever girl who loves the sciences and is already sitting exams an 18-year-old would normally sit.

You think calling someone that doesn't hurt as much as calling someone fat?

I saw an interview of Erin O'Connor, a model who now also runs an agency. She's 6ft., 1in.

She describes how hurtful it is to have your integrity as a human constantly attacked - you must have an eating disorder, you're anorexic, do you even menstruate? etc. - because of your size no matter what it is.

expat - being tall full stop is difficult, especially when you are young. Regardless of your size. Beleive me if I could have lopped off a few inches I would have.

yes, but it's not helped when people make fun of your size when you have little control over it (she eats STAGGERING amounts of food), or adults who obviously believe anyone that tall who isn't size 14+ is ED, looks ill, etc.

14 = normal

next!

I remember talking to a tailor once (who made bespoke suits for men) and asked whether or not he'd ever consider doing it for woman. He said no. It's too difficult. Men's body shapes are slightly more "standardised" than women, as there are fewer options for variation. He said when making a suit for a woman, you have to take many many more measurements than you would for a man. Women have huge variation in hip size, hip to waist ratio, breast size and shape (obviously this is an area where there is a lot of differences).
So, it's easier to find a pretty standard "woman-ish" shape that's easy to dress - tall and thin with small hips and breasts.

I think it could also be because most clothing nowadays is bought "off the rail". Very few people know how to make clothes for themselves, they don't get clothes made, and they don't get them altered - they're mass produced. Back in the day (pre mass production) when designers used curvier models, what often happened is that people would see couture designs etc, and then make stuff themselves, adapting it to their body shape. I think the major shift happened in the 1960s when fashion became more popularist, and now it's even more so.

Models are usually young; many start modelling careers at 15. I know very few teenagers who are a size 14. It is irrelevant to talk about the average size and height of the 25-34 age group when models who work beyond 25 are very rare.

All of these complaints about models seem to have come along at the same time as the trend to not get married and have kids until thirty plus. Women who are not young want to see themselves as the group that are most attractive. They cannot handle the fact that a 20 year old with a youthful complexion and a young, slender physique is more attractive than they are. So they diet and claim it to be impossible to be that thin. Well, it is very difficult to be that thin if you're 30 and your metabolism has slowed down.

A lot of attractiveness is cross cultural and is about identifying who is most fertile - the young and fit. Those size 14 models do not look fertile - they look as if they are already pregnant.

Older women have to accept that they are unlikely to maintain a teenage body and skin, and many clothes in fashion magazines and TopShop are not designed with them in mind. Many other, lovely clothes are.

And stop making out that perfectly healthy teenagers look anorexic. It is really hard to get to 5 foot 10 without being very skinny for quite a few years. All your calories are going into growing upwards. Of course some models have eating disorders,but that doesn't mean all thin or slim people do.

Why are so many people worried about models being thin? Why don't they worry about models being young? That isn't representative of most women either.

expat,

I do agree that unpleasant comments on a person's size, in whatever directio, are unacceptable and hurtful.

However, being tall and thin does not carry with it the same connotations of moral failure and intellectual inferiority of being fat. Large people are abused in the street for being 'fat, stupid, lazy cows' (personal experience)without any evidence of anything except the fatness. Does your thin niece - or any other thin person in your experience - suffer from similar assumptions about her lack of discipline, sloth, greed, and limited brainpower solely on the basis of her appearance?

Being called a giraffe (or whatever) may certainly be hurtful and is undoubtedly tedious, but it's not the same as the assumption that anyone who is 'fat' (however defined) is lazy and stupid as well.

Thank you, Milly!

An excellent post.

Yes, size 14 is normal for some people. Just as, believe it or not, size 0 is for some (usually quite short women, but again, I've got a 49-year-old friend who is 5ft. tall and size 0 and believe me, she's tried everything to gain weight! She's Phillipino and just tiny and yes, she's a mother and a grandmother!), or size 10 or size 8.

This trend of anomosity towards thin people really, as the mother of a thin and tall daughter, really bothers me, tbh. Because she's a fragile child as it is, not the most confident.

I'm 5ft., 4in. and size 14 myself.

But hey, I'm nearly 40 and had 3 kids in 5 years and I don't exercise and eat a lot.

If we're going to say, 'size 14 isn't plus sized' then we also need to say, 'some people are tall and size 10 or short and size 0' and that is just as okay!

What you see on the catwalk isn't what you see hanging in Monsoon or M&S - they take themes from shows but generally speaking it's a different world from day to day clothing.

I am small (height wise and clothes size wise) and when in the US buy either size 0 or 2 - and these sizes are perfectly appropriate to my height and build so get very cross with the whole size 0 debate and to be bigger would be unhealthy. For me.

I don't see why "walking mannequin" is hurtful, actually. To me that seems just to be saying "You look like a model" which doeesn't seem hugely upsetting. In-house models used by fashion houses to show off clothes to potential customers (as opposed to press shows) were (maybe still are; I'm never likely to be close enough to the inside of a fashion house to find out) called mannequins, weren't they?

I do see that realistically a working model needs to be someone who looks good in pretty much anything. Normal women can have a mental checklist of what suits them and what doesn't, but a model's job is to be able to pick up any outfit, put it on and make it look good. "Good" is a bit of a movable feast, though, as while models have always been on the slender side the fashionable body type has varied; sometimes athletic/curvy (still thinking of a slender 6' version of "curvy" here) is in and sometimes stick-like/androgynous is in.

I don't personally think that the extremely thin end of models (say with the twig-like upper arms that have virtually nothing to them) do make clothes look good. But someone who plays volleyball and swims presumably wouldn't be in that category -- indeed, if expat's niece is a size 10 (UK) she would from what tispity says be at the very top end of "acceptable" size for a normal model.

I disagree, AG. It may not be the same, but it is every bit as hurtful to be yelled at in the street that you are anorexic, which is a psychiatric mental disorder. Basically, it's labelling someone you don't know as having a serious mental illness.

Or that you look ill. Or have an eating disorder. Or asked if you menstruate (yep, she's been asked!).

That is no less damaging and hurtful than the assumption that you're lazy or slothful.

D'oes your thin niece - or any other thin person in your experience - suffer from similar assumptions about her lack of discipline, sloth, greed, and limited brainpower solely on the basis of her appearance?'

When someone calls you a walking mannequin, well, that's an assumption that you're a brainless object, a doll, basically.

So yeah, she's suffered from similar assumptions about lack of brainpower.

And it's very harmful.

IMO the problem is that there is no happy medium. Either you have the thin traditional sized models, or you have the plus sized models that are generally a bit (sometimes much) larger than is healthy. We should be seeing healthy looking woman, with healthy BMI's. Rolls of fat are not healthy, yes i know that the majority of women do have rolls of fat, but when models (plus sized) are unhealthily overweight it also doesn't give out the right message, the same as having underweight models does.

'I don't see why "walking mannequin" is hurtful, actually. To me that seems just to be saying "You look like a model" which doeesn't seem hugely upsetting. In-house models used by fashion houses to show off clothes to potential customers (as opposed to press shows) were (maybe still are; I'm never likely to be close enough to the inside of a fashion house to find out) called mannequins, weren't they?'

You don't see that as upsetting to a 15-year-old girl (who doesn't even want to be a model, but a doctor) but it's horrible to abuse someone who is large?

Abuse based on one's size is abuse no matter what.

Mannequin is a French word for a model, too, btw, that is why in the industry some models are called that, particularly if working for a French house.

What a great attitude! That it's okay and not at all hurtful to label thin people.

I can see a bright future for my tall, thin daughter.

She's already self-conscious about how thin she is.

AvengingAngel, I can see your point - but what goes through your head when you see a skinny, size 6/8 person? Personally, I think yeuch, way too thin, must be anorexic and a bit mad.

There are negative attitudes on both sides - it is just that when people look at fat people they assume that they don't have a psychological hang up (which is not always the case) and are therefore more likely to tell them to lose weight as it must be due to laziness.

I completely agree with what OP is saying. I find it irritating as I think that magazines are fuelling the diet movement amongst teenagers by describing size 14 as "plus size".

"clothes look better on tall thin girls"

Without any curves to fill them out? I disagree!

We are essentially saying that fat people are stereotyped as being lazy and lacking in self-restraint while thin people are stereotyped as having the mental illness which is most likely to be fatal.

If you were an employer, which of those stereotypes would you rather employ? If you were choosing someone to get into a relationship with, which would you choose?

'when you see a skinny, size 6/8 person? Personally, I think yeuch, way too thin, must be anorexic and a bit mad.'

Wow.

How narrow-minded and sad. Instead of seeing a person, just immediately assuming they are ugly and mentally ill.

IMO, that's just as bad as, when you see someone overweight, assuming they are lazy and stupid.

I would like to add I actually think most of the regular models are ugly. "Plus size" models, probably because they are healthy, are usually much better looking.

'"Plus size" models, probably because they are healthy, are usually much better looking. '

Again, the assumption that anyone that tall who isn't size 14 is not healthy.

What about tall, thin men?

Are they 'yeuch, too thin, anorexic and a bit mad' as well?

My husband is one of those rake thin, tall men.