The Woman on Page 164
The photo of this woman showed up on page 164 of Glamour magazine - causing quite a response, in the positive. Seems women were elated to finally see someone that looked like them.
Seriously, I wish there were more women like this in magazines. I was just at the exhibit of the work of fashion photographer Richard Avedon (at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and was also struck by how much older models used to be – reminded me that the concept of beauty has really shifted to a significantly younger (and thinner) segment of the female population in more recent history. When you see that evolution in print, it’s hard to take the current concept of beauty seriously — it’s an arbitrary, moving target, and right now the beauty bullseye is a skinny girl, not a grown, curvy woman like it was in the 1950s. That doesn’t make much sense to me, but then again, I’m not the one filling magazines with images, either.
2 Responses to “The Woman on Page 164”
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seng on August 26th, 2009
Some things that this photo still shares with more common magazine beauty images:
- model is White and blonde
- her face still looks thin (cover her from the shoulders down and can you tell her dress size?)
- she is position in such a way as to hide the fleshier parts of her body (arms and legs crossed to obscure full view)
- her skin is free of blemishes or modifications
Please consider that in many places that aren’t North America, size 12 is still far larger than average.
admin on August 26th, 2009
Definitely agreed on all accounts. I guess it’s saying something that I was simply excited to see a woman who wasn’t a size 2 — and that it almost seems too much to ask for all the rest you mentioned. Which, of course, it isn’t.