Noun:

"the act of causing to become beautiful or handsome "

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Typical Fashion//Edited Images






If one writes one’s update at school, but posts it at home, is it still updating from school? Who knows? Not I, not I. Today, I’m going to tackle the subject of the typical girl in my school, and how she dresses, which generally consists of (correct me if I’m wrong, friends from school) Uggs with jeans tucked in, some sort of tank top or tee, with a Northface jacket or a hoodie from Aeropostale or American Eagle, and some pressures of society through fashion.
Also known as, they dress… Exactly alike. I’m all for following trends and whatnot, but following a trend to the point where you all look like little clones of one another defeats another purpose of fashion, which is to be an outward expression of self. Well, this might not be a specific purpose of it, but it is what happens. According to these people at school with me, they all think the same, are built the same, look the same, feel the same – about everything!
I’m not saying dressing like someone you admire is bad, but when you look like nearly every single one of your peers, it’s less about dressing like people you admire or want to emulate and more like you just want, desperately, to fit in.
Why else would someone wear Uggs? They’re glorified slippers, bear feet, and true to their name, they’re hideous. I’m not even sure why they’re fashionable. Maybe it’s because they’re comfortable or something, because they’re not attractive. These girls look sort of ridiculous. They have these fluffy Northface jackets, with tight, TIGHT jeans underneath, and then these huge fluffy boots, which give them the appearance of having a big torso, spindly legs, and huge feet, a bit like a cartoon character, or a caricature of the true human form.
There’s a girl in one of my classes who dresses like this almost every day. I recall one day when she didn’t wear a loose jacket or vest over her shirt, and being shocked to see that she has THE hourglass figure. Her waist is tiny, and she’s built basically perfectly. There’s a reason the hourglass was ideal for so many years, and that’s because it was attractive. Designers and celebrities, why are you making these poor girls want to hide their fantastic figures?
Skinny jeans, although I love them, I have a bit of a beef with. For the aforementioned teenage girls, they’re perfect for stuffing into boots, because you don’t have to try and fold them over neatly. But they are “skinny” jeans, although the name comes from the leg shape, not from the type of figure you have to have to wear them. The problem is that it’s just one more reminder to women who are normal sized that to be “in” you have to be tiny. This isn’t true at ALL.
Here she is, guys. Twiggy. The woman who started it all, who was criticized for being too thin and detracting from the reality of women’s bodies.
And now we have the scandal surrounding that model who was edited to be so thin, SO thin, and it was found out about. It’s so sick. The majority of us will never be as thin as the models we see every day, all around us. We’re just not built that way. But you know what? We’re beautiful anyways. Designers need to stop designing for these tiny women and start designing for real people. Until girls can be shown that they’re beautiful whether they wear their Uggs and their Northface jackets, or whether they wear a pair of Tripp pants and dress to suit their figures, and until girls can be taught that they should keep themselves healthy – not necessarily thin, then we will still have girls fighting this horror that is eating disorders because they desperately want to be thin and, by association, beautiful.
Everywhere around us, we’re bombarded by message: You are worthless unless you are thin.
You are worthless, unless you are thin.
Unless you are thin.
What’s thin? Is it poor Filippa Hamilton? Who wasn’t thin enough on her own?
Just look at that.
On the left you have Filippa Hamilton as she usually appears – healthy, gorgeous, and human. On the right, you have Ralph Lauren’s edited advertisement. Her body is unnaturally thin, freakishly so. As another blogger, Xeni, put it, “Dude, her head is bigger than her pelvis”.
Now Filippa Hamilton is claiming that she was fired for being too fat. As if that gorgeous woman on the right who looks like – oh, the horror – a real woman, is too fat. Hamilton is 5’10” and 120 pounds. There’s nothing normal in that second image, nothing even possible, really. And now girls will look at that image and the probable dozens like it and think that that’s beautiful and that’s what they should look like.
Quite frankly, I think Whitney Thomson, “plus size” winner of America’s Next Top Model, is infinitely more attractive than Hamilton. Honestly, I’d rather look like her any day. But even calling Ms. Thomson “plus size” is ridiculous. She’s hardly any heavier than me, and if that’s plus size, then I’m a happy plus size. I’d rather look like her any day, which is good, because she and I are built the same way anyways.
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