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Hillary Moss at HuffPost has an excellent piece up, entitled: Emaciation Proclamation: Ralph Lauren Makes A Super-Skinny Statement On The Runway, Too (PHOTOS)
I didn’t want to embed Moss’s slide show in this post, but you can read what she’s written, and more importantly, view the slide show at this link.
However, I did find one of Mr. Lauren’s style shows on YouTube, and I feel free to embed that one here. Watch it and weep…
Anorexia nervosa is often thought of as a condition that primarily affects teenage girls, but it really affects women of all ages, not just teenagers, as well as some boys and men. And, even ordinary women who do not suffer from that miserable condition still suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous expectations: fad diets, malnutrition, lack of energy and vitality, critical partners, and on and on.
I know what it is to be skinny. I was skinny before Twiggy was popular. I also know what it is to be listless and lack vitality because your body does not have enough mass to it. Being as skinny as these models is nothing to be envied. Pitied, perhaps.
How can anyone look at these young girls and not ask “malabsorption?” “Drugs?” might be another wondering question, since drugs might actually be necessary in order to function, when your body lacks enough mass to function on its own. Or, “POWs?” might be another reasonable response.
May the goddesses be praised that I’m not that skinny any more.
13 Comments
It’s truly sad how much of a reality disconnect is out there in so many aspects of American culture. Lauren has a massive retail empire and could do so much good. That he continues with such an unhealthy “ideal” is unforgivable.
Thanks for commenting, Jim!
I doubt that this post will have the power to shame him, but maybe it will give others something to think about.
You know, I should have mentioned men & boys, too. Better update…
Um, not that I follow fashion that closely, but this seems really Un-Lauren-like. He has since apologized for the kerfuffle over the image. I wonder who was driving the decision? Yes, he is ultimately responsible. But his print models don’t seem inordinately thin (like Kate Moss).
thanks for the links. I’m going to read!
I have always suspected that a great many fashion designers–male and female–just don’t like women, period. How else do you explain the ridiculous, expensive, uncomfortable contraptions they come up with? That this tendency has now devolved fully into a fetish for starvation is hardly surprising.
I remember reading that the Milan fashion shows have instituted minimum weight standards, but that certain designers were blocking more general adoption. It might be time for a boycott. But I’m hardly the one t lead it–I wear Costco jeans almost exclusively.
I find the whole issue really confusing – I’ve finally come down to a position where except for a few designers (and Isaac Mizrahi comes to mind), it appears that fashion designers would actually rather just have motorized dress racks that would go down the catwalk. From what people like Lauren and Karl Lagerfeld say, there is only one type of human being who they’d make clothing for and would want it worn by: a being who is frozen in time, looking about 15-16, but pre-pubescent — flat, thin, tall, with nothing that sticks out or interrupts the line of their clothing. Anyone who is NOT (who has any flesh to them at all) is a cow. One of the reasons that I think Mizrahi is different (and you can tell he is from his ad campaigns) is that he grew up in a family that was in the dress manufacturing business — so inside his head from an early age was the message that someone has to buy this stuff and that someone has to like how they look in it enough to spend the money on it. So, he had all different sizes and shapes of women in his head – because frankly he wants as much of that market as he can grab. The others? Well, they are designing clothes.
Bingo! And, of course, the only type of person who looks well enough in such clothes is the flat-chested walking coat hanger. Curves interrupt the flow of the lines.
Thank you for your interesting comment. I’ll have to look more closely at Mizrahi now.
I don’t wear Ralph Lauren, either. I don’t even wear jeans any more, because they just aren’t comfortable enough, unless you spend a fair amount of bucks on them.
He’s totally bat s*it crazy,a little silly and an attention hog, but if you look at his clothes, not only what he did with Target, but also now with Liz Claiborn and his couture stuff, he is someone who appreciates boobs, rearends and waist lines. I also think that he was greatly effected by growing up in the 50s around his mom, his aunties and his grandmother because he is very very fond of that silhouette. Something else I just thought of is that he completely accepts himself – the bandanna on the head, the talking with the hands, etc. If you look at Lauren and Lagerfeld especially (and I am not going to discuss what I think of a 70 year old guy who insists on wearing Edwardian collars and black leather gloves to cover up the two body areas which show age the fastest, the neck and the and) — these are two guys who do NOT accept themselves — Lauren has been running away from his origins since Day One and Lagerfeld has been chasing youth in that hall of mirrors that’s inside his head for the last 30 years.
I hadn’t thought about Karl Lagerfeld, but you’re right, he does dress to hide his age. And Lauren! He designs menswear, but how does he appear on the runway? In a lovely jacket, over ragged jeans and a blue denim work shirt. I don’t really think it works.
I don’t buy many clothes at Target. It may be an age thing. I don’t find much there to fit me. Not so much a size issue as one of proportions. I need women’s sizes, not juniors, which is mostly what I see at the Target in my area.
the REAL Ralph Lauren posing as a White Anglo Protestant of the horsey set…..is drumroll………
Ralph Lauren (born Ralph Rueben Lifshitz on October 14, 1939) is an American fashion designer and business executive. He is most notable for his Polo Ralph Lauren clothing brand
Now, here is something upon which we can agree. Lauren really does promote an image which is unreachable for most women, and maybe not desirable in the first place. It just doesn’t help.
Karen,
Just wanted to make sure you see this article: Why Women Should Push for Health Care Reform.
Thanks, Jim! I hadn’t seen that particular article yet, but I had already come across the National Women’s Law Project’s petition, which I duly signed, tweeted, etc.