Sizing up the Web! (By Which We Mean: Links!)
1. Some reviews of Huge! Or as The Frisky put it, “Fat People Were On TV And, Whaddya Know, The World Didn’t End.”
2. An awesome 18-year-old spent a month following Seventeen magazine dictates and blogging about it, calling it the Seventeen Magazine Project. Her intent was to draw more attention to the media’s ridiculous perception of women and teens and what they want, and are supposed to want. And now she’s decided to get even louder, putting together a community project called “Hey mainstream media.”
To participate in this project, all that you have to do is take a picture of yourself holding a sign with words finishing the statement, “Hey mainstream media! I am….”
Anyone can participate in this project. That is, anyone that at some point has felt misrepresented by or excluded from mainstream media. This project is NOT just for teens. Are you a black woman? Maybe you’re more than just a sassy best friend character. A straight man? Maybe you’re interested in more than just pictures of naked women. Unlike media, this project does not exclude or alienate any demographic.
You can add photos directly to the Flickr pool to participate. http://www.flickr.com/groups/heymainstreammedia/
3. The headline in this NYT article says it all: Plus-Size Revelation: Bigger Women Have Cash Too.
Corseted into a size 18 white denim dress, wearing heels that made her about 6-foot-2, Gwen DeVoe, a former model and fashion-show producer, stepped onto a runway in Manhattan this week and made a pitch to retailers for the plus-size woman.
Those stores that don’t carry bigger sizes? “Shame on you, baby, shame on you,” Ms. DeVoe said. “Every curvy girl that has a dollar is willing to spend that dollar.”
So retailers are realizing.
Just now? Just now they’re realizing? It feels like they’ve been realizing and poised to take on the plus-size market for about as long as I have been alive. Hey, maybe one day it’ll be a nice, ordinary fact, and not “news.”
4. A little late, but I just ran into this: Full-Figured Fashion Week happened, and it sounds like it was awesome. Sponsorship was up (7 sponsors last year, 35 this year!). My favorite part: how New York Magazine wistfully notes that everyone had a very swell time.
It’s a shame Full Figured Fashion Week has to be so separate from New York’s main Fashion Week. It’s also too bad the main Fashion Week doesn’t have model competitions or fun award ceremonies and a vibe that’s not life-or-death.
Posted by jenfu
Filed under: Cold Hard Cash, Fashion, Fat Positive, Gabby Sidibe, Huge, Magazines, Media, TV
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What’s with this quote, “Plus-size stocks take up valuable storage space, and not everyone is big in the same way, meaning stores cannot count on, say, a size 16 dress fitting most 180-pound women — one might have a larger torso, another big thighs and another wider hips.”
So women under a size 16 all have the same body type?
May I add a link? It’s not about fat; but it’s about providing affordable health care in a good way, and I thought it was super cool:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/01/a-little-van-with-a-big-impact.html?from=rss
As the image of fat women / people maybe improves, try typing “fat chic” into the google search box. It suggests, among other things, “fat chicks in party hats” and “fat chick jokes” and does not even recognize “fat chic” on the first try. As if you have to be a bad speller, and what you really want is stuff that makes fun of fat women. I emailed google about this months ago, they obviously couldn’t care less.
Thank you so much for the link to the Seventeen Magazine Project … she is awesome.
M – I so agree! Manufacturers make up the most ridiculous excuses for not selling plus size clothes or using plus size models. Like have you seen this post about a plus size store which uses thin models? http://contexts.org/socimages/2010/05/08/large-clothes-on-small-women-a-plus-size-marketing-mystery/?utm_source
It seems so simple – People are different sizes, they all deserve to be clothed. Makes clothes in all sizes. DONE.