Bringing super back

It's looking increasingly like the original Supermodels (and by that I mean the 80s supermodels) are making a comeback. In the past few days I've seen shoots with Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Naomi (okay, Naomi was never officially "away" but let's overlook that for the sake of this post, shall we).

I, for one, am glad they're back. I've missed them so. The Supers are the fashion icons I grew up with. Long before the waif was chic. Long before celebrity became a vocation, and actors and singers became a brand, the Supers bestrode the fashion world like Colossi.

They were strong, they were sexy, they didn't get out of bed for less than an average person's annual wages, and I loved them all. Because although they were freakishly tall and well put together, they still looked like they'd had their fair share of hot dinners. They had a beauty that you could aspire to - if maybe not fully achieve.

Even all these years later, they still look like they can kick some arse as well as look glamourous. Today's walking cadavers, AKA models, simply don't compare.

Thigh's the limit - Naomi for V mag

Wonder woman - Christy strikes a pose for W mag

Still not getting out of bed - Linda for Prada

Not a skinny breastbone in sight - Cindy in her hey day (and she still looks amazing)

Images courtesy Fashionation

Dressing on a curve

Yeah, it's been a looong weekend peeps. So long, that I couldn't get round to posting yesterday... Soz.

While I've been away with the weekend fairies, I've spent time wondering: where did all the curvy go? While surfing around my current obsession with the pin-up look, it struck me how hugely the female body aesthetic has changed.

Just how did we get from bombshells like Marilyn Monroe and Bettie Page - or even more recently, the original supermodels - to the skinny, no boobs, no arse, no... body(!) women who are lauded today. How is that stick figure look attractive and why do designers continue to insist on trying to shrink women down to a shadow of womanhood?

More importantly, why do we let them? How is Victoria Beckham (AKA skeletor spice) and various other lollipop headed celebs in any way preferable to any normal sized woman? As you can see, I am full of questions.

Anyway, I think what I find most attractive about the good old fashioned curvy lady is that hip to waist ratio - teenie waist swelling into full hips. I'm not sure that they make women like that anymore and I think that look had everything to do with the underwear.

Bullet bras, full body girdles, half-girdles, waist nippers, corsets, these were the tools of the trade that gave that comely silhouette, that ultra-femme form. And even when the curvy ladies of yore weren't trussed up in their "shapewear", they wore the most flattering smalls - high waisted pants that nipped in the waist and covered the belly, pretty pettycoats and silken slips... So much more drool-worthy than any of the absurd, butt flossing, whale tail giving, excuses for underwear that's on offer today.

Gotta get me some of that.

Image credits:

Liberette, Pandora's Choice, Posh Vintage Girl, Silver Screen

See more vintage

You have got to see this

We all like to think we're not naive. We know that celebrity and magazine images go through a lot of air brushing in order get that luminosity of which we all approve.

If, like me, you spend a lot of your time poring through the magazines and wondering (in abject envy) how everyone manages to look so good (conveniently forgetting the airbrushing) then you really should go see what the before pictures look like at Iwanex studio and reclaim your sanity.
Because no-one real ever looked as good as they do in the movies, in adverts or in photos and it's high time we all just stopped trying.

Eva Longoria - What I find most disturbing about this image is that they airbrished it to make her look fatter! How guant do you have to be for photoshop curves to be added? Eat a frikkin burger already.

Will the real Matthew Macfayden please stand up? He's still handsome man. Only with flaws. Like real people.
Click on images to enlarge

Bikinis Vs Swimsuits

If you have - or believe you have - a less than perfect body, then this must be a no-brainer. The bikini is the most unforgiving of garments. It's designed to reveal more than it conceals, and that makes it most women's worst nightmare.

I would argue that it's not really a garment all. At it's most basic, it's bits of string with triangles of fabric attached. Bikinis are pretty standard really, when you think about it.

Berry good: Halle fills out her bikini

There's not much to fire the imagination from a design perspective. You can change the fabric all you want and vary the amount of fabric involved, but in the end it still amounts to the rough equivalent of a bra and pants that you wear to the beach.

The swimsuit, on the other hand, gives far more coverage, you can choose one that reveals the bits that you like, while covering the bits that you don't. You can hidden support for sagging tits or bulging bellies or drooping bums.

There's also more of range to choose from: halter neck backless items, scooped, cutout, deep v-ed. They can be sexy or demure, brash or subtle. It's you choice which means that you can create you own comfort level.

The good thing about a bikini is that it is probably the one item of clothing left (apart from underwear) where "looking good" does not automatically equal "stick thin". All those stickie-out ribs and pancake flat tits and arse don't work in a bikini.

To truly look good in a bikini you have to have curves in all the right places. You gotta have booty. Just look at Bond girls like Ursula Andress or Halle Berry or take a gander at the girls on the beaches of Brazil or Miami. Now compare that with your common or garden variety size zero and tell me which looks better.

Uma God! Ms Thurman chooses the wrong beach wear

Conversely, the wrong swimsuit can quickly descend into the mimsy and mundane. Remember those pics of Uma Thurman in her plain one-piece on the beach? Before that picture she was a universally acknowledged hottie, after it she lost some of that heat.

So what am I getting at? I'm saying with this one there's just no clear winner. What really matters is being sufficiently confident in your body-shape to choose the right swimwear for you and then letting everyone know how gorgeous you think you are.

See:
Five of the best... swimsuits
Five of best... Bikinis

Come the backlash

I warned you about it and it looks like it's finally happening. There's a groundswell of people who have decided they don't want to look like anyone else, they're fed-up of cookie-cutter, high street style and that Skeletor in skinnies is so not a look.

According to a survey, the new style icon is Ugly Betty. People dig her individual style. It's all about geek chic.

Take a look around you:

• Tyrah Banks is bigger than ever (and I don't mean the hair or the show)
• curvy actresses like America Ferrera and Jennifer Hudson are ruling the red carpet
• fashion is supersizing everything in sight - from jeans to dresses to bags
• Zara - last bastion of the normal size 14 as an extra large - is making it's dress sizes more realistic
• And then there's Beth Ditto

Back up y'all, the booty is back and it is HUGE. Forget body con and size zero, the trend that's set to run and run is real women with real curves and big personalities.

Now excuse me while I go burn my spanx and eat another chocolate biscuit.

Thank heaven for skinny girls

I’ve been following the current hoopla surrounding skinny models with a some degree of cynicism lately. It’s as if everyone has suddenly forgotten what models are. I mean, what else is a model to do if not be skinny. That, I would say, is a considerable part of the modelling job description. It’s not as if they’re supposed to be like ordinary mortals. What would be remotely interesting about that? What’s next? Models to be less tall, have pot bellies, pimples?

Just to put this thing to bed in my mind once and for all I logged on to trusty dictionary.com for guidance. The definition that particularly caught my eye being definition number 2: a representation, generally in miniature [italics mine], to show the construction or appearance of something. Hee! Now if that isn’t the definitive, er, definition, I just don’t know what is.

Models are freaks of nature. They stand out because they have the leg measurements of the average skyscraper or because they manage to have a luscious cleavage and a 22 inch waist. Not everyone is so blessed and it is not something that you can make happen if you weren’t born with it – unless, of course, you are happy to let some quack remove a few ribs (yes, Cher, I am talking about you).

Why blame the models? They’re just being what they are supposed to be – tall, skinny, pretty, pouty, young. Why not blame the designers with their fugly clothes that only ever look good on models and, that they expect us, real women, to buy. The thing is, as long as we have these women who obviously have more money than sense or taste for that matter (read WAGS and bloody, bloody, Victoria Beckham) these designers getting away with it. For now.

Surely it can only be a matter of time before the backlash; before we start looking at ourselves in the mirror and realising that there is no point in trying to look like models because most of us simply will never look that way. What we need is more clothes that are made for real women that help us look good with our God given booty, whatever size that booty might be. Which is why I applaud the lovely M&S with their dresses with the hidden support that keeps us nipped in at the right places and looking our gorgeous best.

And to the designers and their fancy models, I say, you can kiss my big behind buh-bye.