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Logan's Style Watch
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MARILYN WAS A SIZE 14?????????
by Logan Bentley Lessona
Rome, January 6, 2001 Some people were surprised to learn that Marilyn Monroe's adored Pucci dresses were size 14. When they, along with her white baby grand piano, high-heeled Ferragamo pumps studded with red rhinestones, kitchenware and various other personal belongings were auctioned off recently in New York the awful secret came out.
Zaftig? Yes, but they may not know that an expensive size 14 dress sold back in the 1950s is probably a size 8 today. Women are so body-conscious and competitive that nobody wants to have to admit she wears a size larger than 10. Since there is no real standardization in clothing sizes shoppers will find that the more expensive the garment, the smaller the relative size.
In other words, a size 10 from Kmart probably fits a lot smaller than a size 10 from Oscar della Renta. And although the measurements given for models and Miss Americas may read 34-24-34 don't believe it for a minute. Thin, yes, but things have reached a point where reality has become lost somewhere in wishful thinking.
According to the size charts that come with the catalogs from Lands End (one of my absolutely favorite "stores") a size 10 dress fits the following measurements: Bust - 36 , Waist - 28, Hips - 38 1/2. What does that tell us? The average woman's hips are more than two inches larger than her bust. So much for 34-24-34. But try to get women to believe that! .
When my daughter was five years old in 1973 her best friend's mother was suffering from anorexia nervosa. I had never heard of this disease until my best friend told me of her friend who had the same thing. It was several years before newspapers and magazines in the U.S. began writing about it.
It's terrible that women who have perfectly normal bodies for their height and bone structure are constantly comparing themselves with the idealized images they see in magazines, on TV, and in movies and find themselves "fat." But the fashion industry completely ignores the 40 percent of the U.S. female population that wears size 14 and up.
Recently there was a big uproar in the press because someboy did a study on the measurements of Playmates for the past years and discovered that according to the standards they were all skinny and below the average "healthy" weight for women of their age and height. I wonder if those "measurements" were truly honest or if they were wishful thinking on the part of the playmates.
Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair got into the act a few months ago when he protested against the impossibly thin image of women's bodies perpetuated by the fashion magazines and model agencies. So what happened? Eveybody paid lip service and agreed, but a glance through the high fashion magazines shows that things haven't really changed.
I've got good news and bad news. The new ad campaign for Opium, the Yves St. Laurent perfume that's been around since 1977, shows two pages in profile of the magnificent (and munificent) model Sophie Dahl (daughter of author Roald Dahl) lying in the altogether on her back on a black velvet drape photographed by Stephen Meisel. She's certainly not Rubenesque, but she is definitely shapely. (Perfume sales quadrupled in four months.)
Of course the computer has given her a perfect, flawless, pearlescent skin that looks like marble come to life, and I'm sure that the photograph arouses erotic feelings in a lot of men. An article in the Italian weekly newsmagazine headlined: "Sophie, the opium of the people" and went on to list her measurements (43" x 30" x 43") and six feet two inches tall.
So the good news is that St. Laurent is using for his brand image the body of a woman considered overweight. But the sad fact (and the bad news) about the whole business is that 40 percent of women have bodies like this, or even heavier, and rather than considering hers a normal, healthy body, our dear Sophie is presented as a model of the overweight but beautiful woman.
Plus, with the use of computers in photographs, nobody is EVER going to look the same in the flesh as they look in the perfected printed photograph. Retouching was one thing, for a little blemish or some crow's feet at the eyes, but now photographs in fashion magazines are literally repainted by the computer. The image that is admired presents a perfection that is impossible to attain by any human being.
We are now (truly) in the third millenium yet women no matter how "liberated" are still, agonizing about the appearance of their bodies. And nobody, I bet not even Cindy Crawford, is satisfied with the body nature gave them. Had I been satisfied with the body I had when I was twenty, with a 26-inch waist and six feet tall, I would not have dieted myself into the sad shape of today. I actually started worrying about my weight when I was seven years old.
It's bad enough that children and adolescents are subjected to this kind of brainwashing, but what to make of the mother in London ready to give a new bosom to her (still-growing) daughter for her sixteenth birthday? Thank goodness the doctor refused to perform the operation, but no doubt she'll find another willing to do the miserable job.
Will it take another century for women to accept their bodies without angst, or will they all be clones of Bo Derek in the fourth millenium?
© 2001 Logan Bentley Lessona
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