Oh fashion industry, with your ridiculously unrealistic beauty images. You’re making us all so sad and self-hating. Throw us a bone, why don’t you?
And they did.
A tiny
little
bone.
Image: ‘Plus size’ model Lizzie Miller is 20 years old and in the September issue of Glamour.
It has probably been at least ten years since I stopped reading womens’ magazines but I see that little progress has been made. We are still at the first stage, the be patient and grateful for the odd tiny concession to reality in the portrayal of womens’ bodies. The saddest thing is just how grateful we all are for these tiny concessions.
blue milk 
Yeah, that’s about what my figure looks like (I’m also a size 12 at 5’10” and 150 lbs), and I have made a point to startle all my mother’s middle-aged acquaintances who’ve cooed about my modeling prospects by saying I don’t want to be considered “plus-size”. Because yah, I don’t, it’s ridiculous.
If that’s plus size I’m a bible bashing conservative bogan.
Lizzie Miller is a beautiful woman.
It is indeed depressing. I note how she is sitting in her underwear – one thin red string and no bra -and she looks pretty skinny to me. The more depressing thing is the way the women themselves react, with a pathetic gratitude which seldom questions the premises and the manipulation.
I remember being quite plus and also quite minus when I was 21. I was changeable, I suppose. At least now I have the virtue of consistency, which is easier on my waistbands. Which makes me think that the red string looks quite like a person who has been wearing too-tight elastic for too long rather than an actual garment.
I almost don’t know what to think about this. It’s not like Glamour is going to start using models who more realistically represent what women look like from now on. So this hits me as a completely token image.
And yes, she looks like a familiar healthy, fit, tall, young, white woman. And we’re excited to see this because…she’s so “different.” She still fits all of the glamour/fashion magazine critiera for the Ideal Woman but for the fact that she eats.
Oh, it’s all so continually bothersome.
Oh, such a tiny concession. It just says: it’s okay to be a little bit bigger than a stick but ONLY if you’re absolutely flawless otherwise.
It was interesting to read all the ‘grateful’ comments. People kept saying how good it was to see an image which hadn’t been photoshopped. Rubbish! Of course it’s photoshopped! Everything is photoshopped!
‘Plus size’ – that’s hilarious. I am a size 6, and I am no thinner than she is. I have a small frame but I’m not skinny. I get a roll or 3 in my stomach when I sit down too.
Hasn’t been photoshopped? Turtle you are so right – where are her freckles? Her lines? Her flaky dry skin? Her hair!? Her dimples? No one can sit on a bench and not get dimples in their bum/upper thigh area…PLEASE!!!
I was in a shop the other day and I saw the who body issue with these three on the front http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/b/who-magazine/5728/?page_is_popup=1&photo=8 talking about how they learnt to love their bodies.
I’m thinking – ok, so you are not a size 8. But there’s not an ounce of fat on you! So this is telling us, it’s ok to have whatever bone structure you are born with, as long as you still diet and exercise like crazy?
Sigh. I’d say something about getting Magda Szubanski on there, but since she is apparently weight loss’ new poster girl, I feel ambivalent about that, too.