Ashley Falcon is a young, talented and innovative fashionista turn stylist. In the article "Big, Girl in a Skinny World", Falcon offers advice to curvaceous women and tells of her dilemma with being 5'2 and 220 pounds. Although I can only imagine the pressure Falcon must face working in a industry where being anorexic sometimes isn't enough, I was happy to see that Falcon's biggest struggle was simply finding the "perfect, all-occasion pair of slimming, lengthening and ass hugging jeans." Her story is proof to the fashion industry that overweight women are not lazy and greedy for Falcon was genetically born to have a higher efficiency for storing energy in her body.
The main picture placed in the center of the two page article is a sexy full body photo of Falcon dressed in an irrisistibly chic trench coat paired with a sexy high waisted skirt and a set of classic black booties. Now, there were some things I loved about this article and then there were some things I was quite unhappy about. Lets talk about what I loved first. For one, I really enjoyed Falcon's short anecdote of herself because it offered a fresh perspective that is relatable to the vast majority of women out there whose body shape is anything but stick thin. Second, I really appreciated Falcon's daring confrontation to all the designers who equate large women with "woefully ill-fitting" and shapeless clothes that serve to solely "hide the body, style be damned."
Now for the one thing I struggled with.
Although Falcon called out to the designers for creating styles meant to fit 1% of the women out there, in her opening paragraph she wrote "as a fashion stylist at 5`2 and 220 pounds, I'd need an elaborate pulley system and a can of Crisco to shimmy into the clothes I dress models in." Key phrase: I dress models in. Perhaps her clients are indeed models, but I sure hope she isn't supporting the very people she is being oppressed by. Falcon may have come to peace with her weight but her column seems more practical than celebratory when it comes to the transformative power of fashion.
Other than that one statement, it's still awesome to see real women being featured in popular fashion magazines! Especially one who is not self-depreciating but quite on the contrary. Falcon may be a size 18 but she sure knows how to create and rock her own unique style. She certainly proves that "fashionistas come in all shapes and sizes."
XOXO,
Rachel Wang
The "Real Women" = large thing really really bugs me. Models are "real" too, they just don't look average.
Also, is this an example of size equality in fashion, or have a token, fetishized larger women?
I certainly agree with you that models are real people just like how curvaceous women are real people too. Ironically, you don't see many curvy bootylicious women in magazines do you? Hrm..I wonder why.
The underlying problem, to me, is our media, not the women. Our culture's obsessive scrutiny over "image" and maintaining the "right image" is making us sick--literally. Did you know that a new survey conducted by Self Magazine says that 65% of women between the ages of 25 and 45 suffer some sort of eating disorder. Now, that's scary. (http://www.news-medical.net/news/2008/04/22/37616.aspx)
When we look at magazines, we see pages after pages of beautiful women. I wrote about this article because it was something different from all the other articles dealing with sex and beauty and dieting etc. If anything, Falcon's short story served as a reminder that you can be fashionable too without having to be stick thin.