Recently, there has been an interesting spate of retailers using a diverse range of body types to model their clothing. It’s not like we haven’t seen this in the past, but usually the advertiser or magazine editorial will make a point of it, like: “Look at us! We’re being soooo amazingly inclusive! Aren’t we cutting-edge?”… Continue Reading →
Narcissism in numbers: what our sizes say about us
I’ve felt that all-too-familiar terror of walking into a store and wondering what size I’m going to be this time around, or worse, if anything will fit at all. There’s a bit of buzz right now in the media around “vanity sizing” or “size inflation.” Vanity sizing refers to the trend of clothing measurements getting… Continue Reading →
Stacy London makes owning up en vogue
As a harried mother of two who’s probably more poorly dressed that I’d like to admit, I can’t imagine anything worse than some snarky style savants publicly critiquing my wardrobe choices. Unless maybe the fashionista in question were Stacy London of TLC’s What Not to Wear. Yeah, I know the show is based on the… Continue Reading →
Barney’s + Disney = Scary-skinny makeovers
High-end retail department behemoth Barney’s New York announced its holiday collaboration with The Walt Disney Company, wherein our beloved characters get the “runway treatment” (Read: slimmed to scary proportions). The front runners? A truly Skinny Minnie, a drastically dieted-down Daisy Duck, hipster Goofy, and more irritatingly altered versions of the iconic clan. In the short… Continue Reading →
About Face doc: Want to hate yourself? Try modeling.
“I don’t think there’s any 15-year-old girl that will turn down the chance to be called beautiful. You don’t realize at that point that you’re also going to get called ugly,” says Paulina Porizkova, talking about being discovered as a model, about halfway through the new documentary film About Face (no relation to this blog… Continue Reading →
Media moguls seem to miss the point of the Golden Rule
I remember so well my pre-school days of being taught that I should treat others the way I want to be treated. I’m not a Pollyanna about the fact that the pop culture media is not exactly prone to use this as one of their guiding principles, but sometimes they outdo themselves. E!’s show Fashion… Continue Reading →
Yo magazines: It’s time YOU went on a diet!
Somebody needs to go on a diet and it’s not us. It’s the media. Their current regimen? High in digitally deceptive additives (ahem, photoshop), low in nutrient rich reality and diversity. The cure? We want real. Not retouched. That is why About-Face is honored to join the frontline of the three-day social media Keep It… Continue Reading →
H&M heralds the dawn of the “virtual mannequin”
Between print media, TV ads, and virtual promotions, we media watchdogs have seen it all — rib cages, spines, cleavage, you name it. Though the women portrayed in most catalogs are typically white, unhealthily underweight, and sexualized, we could at least find solace in the fact that their bodies were their bodies — a.k.a, not… Continue Reading →
Every time a bell rings, a (Victoria’s Secret) angel gets its wings
Rather than being “fashionable,” the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is a throwback to an era where women were valuable merely as decorations. If every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings, then a lot of bells must have been ringing on Tuesday evening. The Victoria’s Secret “fashion” show aired on CBS Tuesday night…. Continue Reading →