I felt my spleen inflate and knew it needed a good vent when I read this article in The Daily Mail which consisted of the usual nonsense about larger models being used on the cover of a magazine. In this particular case it’s Italian Vogue. God knows they look fabulous these women – well they are – but we are not stupid e nough to think for a moment this is truly high fashion embracing normal sized woman. It is a blatant PR campaign and we have heard it all before.
The very fact they call these women ‘plus size’ shows the attitude still stinks. They are not plus size they are bleedin’ normal sized. Really. The idea of this being a campaign to highlight anorexia cuts no mustard with me.
Years ago I interviewed Liz Jones who writes for The Daily Mail but at that time was editor of a big glossy magazine. What she did was printed the same magazine but with two different covers. One with Sophie Dahl who was the only plus size model any of could name – still is really – and the other cover was of a skinny model of the size zero proprtion. Liz Jones, as editor, said the reasoning behind it was to monitor sales so they could tell which cover was most popular. Well it all went quiet after they got their blaze of publicity and the next month it was back to the size zero gals with the whole thing forgotten. To the extent that last time a ‘plus size’ model was featured on the cover of Vogue it was Sophie Dahl who has now lost heaps of weight and is right back into the zone of supermodel thin. You can see the extremes of how her appearance has changed below. yes they are both the same woman.
So for fear of sounding like a grumpy old woman – hell I am a grumpy old size 12/14 woman and I am not plus size Vogue….I am not buying your magazine God knows my fat hurdies could barely get me to the shop. BUT If next month they still feature ‘normal’ sized women I will take out a lifelong subscription and then I shall eat my hat. I will! And I will post it on You tube. BUT I suspect that won’t be happening as they will revert to normal bet ya!
