What kind of man would think that this is attractive?
Answer: a gay fashion designer.
How much longer are women going to allow some Paris pouf who doesn’t find women attractive to dictate what they should wear and how much they should weigh? How much longer are they going to put up with being forced to look like skinny boys with long hair (and sometimes without the long hair)? What will it take for them to rebel against the schmecker-in-a-concentration-camp look, and demand that actual voluptuous women, the kind that heterosexual men like, be considered alluring again, as they once were in the fashion world and Hollywood?
And yes, before you comment, I know that Ralph Lauren has a wife and kids. But I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that he likes guys, too. And even if he doesn’t, he goes with the anorexic flow because he thinks that’s how you make money in this sick business.
[Update a few minutes later]
How did we get from Marilyn Monroe to Kate Moss? I’m wondering if this had something to do with it. Has the pill made women want their men to look more like women, and for themselves to look more like boys? There’s a lot we don’t know about hormones.
When are the fashion elite going to replace the necktie as formal wear for men? Ties have had their 100 years, let’s have something else. Why does anyone think it is a good idea to take a strong natural fiber (silk), weave it into cloth and then tie it in slipknots around our necks?
I’m wondering whether convenient contraception, though historically new on the scene, may turn out to create such extreme evolutionary pressure favoring those who WANT children as to remake society in only a couple centuries (assuming no singularity, or that when it’s over there will still be human descendants among whom “the fundamental things apply”). That is, the world population may peak around 2050, decline another fifty years, and in the 2100s we may again see average family sizes of seven or eight, and people who can’t figure out why anyone ever wanted to prevent pregnancies … and will have only a dim understanding of why their ancestors were so wild about having sex for its own sake.
I would point at political correctness as a contributing factor. The unremitting mantra of “Just shut up, you don’t get an opinion here” aimed at vaguely whitish heterosexual males leads to a skewed sample.
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Secondly, the manner in which the ‘body mass index’ charts ignore genotype and muscle/fat ratio in determining the boundary weights for “overweight” and “obese” also contribute. They typically don’t calculate your level of bodyfat – but do a rough lookup of height/weight/age/sex. My wife has a very low bodyfat level and is of Germanic decent. Think well-muscled Valkyrie. Yet “the charts” have her as overweight bordering on obese. This has to have some effect is adjusting the patient’s view of what normal might be. “Well, it must be much skinnier than I am…”
I’m female. I ignore fashion dictates. I wear what is comfortable and what I feel good in. Fashion can go [insert your epithet here]. All fashion designers obviously hate women, including female fashion designers. Why females get all bothered about whether they are in fashion or not makes no sense to me.
Interesting idea, Rand.
I always thought the obsession with anorexic-looking women (instead of women-looking women) was a new and devious way to keep women in check. After all, the change from Marilyn Monroe being desirable to the latest super-skinny tart being desirable did come along about the time women were becoming freer in our society. (I’m old enough to remember when it was not only legal but acceptable to sexually harrass women at work, when rape was a woman’s fault, etc.)
Maybe it’s some of both.
I can tell you that this woman never put up with high-fashion crap, even when I was much younger, and always wondered what idiot did – and why.
Great biz model the fashion industry has. Designers of computers and digital cameras have to actually improve their products if they want customers to upgrade. All clothing designers need do is make something new and create a consensus for its adoption, never mind how it looks or functions for the customer.
As a thought experiment, consider what kinds of women’s fashions heterosexual males might design. (I leave this experiment to heterosexual males and to females who know heterosexual males.)
As to
>Why does anyone think it is a good idea to take a strong
> natural fiber (silk), weave it into cloth and then tie it in
> slipknots around our necks?
It was a requirement for polo players in case they break their arms and need a sling. How that got to general status mens wear…??
As to what kind of designer would think this looked good. It reminds me of a fashion designer who explained it as “not wanting a model with womanly curves that spoil the line of the cloths”. Obviously one wonders who else would buy dresses
Keep in mind that female beauty standards always embed wealth indicators. When starvation rules the land, fat woman are hot. When every one is over fed, skinny is in. When people work outside, pale skin is the thing, when people work in cubes a nice tan is sexy. Whatever it is, it’s something that’s hard for normal people to achieve, so that having it indicates having the resources to do so (spare time, personal trainers, whatever).
When are the fashion elite going to replace the necktie as formal wear for men? Ties have had their 100 years, let’s have something else.
For years, I’ve wondered whether ties were invented by masochistic, pain-loving men or sadistic, men-hating women. I still don’t know the answer.
Keep in mind that female beauty standards always embed wealth indicators. When starvation rules the land, fat woman are hot.
I think that the country was pretty well fed during the Monroe era (Marilyn, not James).
Rand,
Isn’t GAY FASHION DESIGNER an oxymoron?
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I suspect the gfd’s happen to LIKE the look of 15 y/o boys as a rule, so they want the world filled with them, even if that 15 y/o boy happens to be a 26 y/o woman.
Here’s what I don’t get, American actresses, models and video news types all strive for the boy look. Yet, the actresses on Univision, etc, all look like Monroe. I guess Spanish guys just demanded a better looking grade of femaleness on their picture tubes and movie screens than American guys do.
I wasn’t into 15 y/o boys, when I WAS a 15 y/o boy. I’m quite old fashioned, I like Rubenesque women. Women who look and smell and move like women. I like smart women, dumb or giggling is a turn off too.
Mrs. Guillotine fits all these old fashioned stats, and has for the better part of 40 years. I’ll keep her.
(in case anyone wonders, she evidently likes barrel chested, hyper-opinionated, blow-hards)
(with beards)
“When are the fashion elite going to replace the necktie as formal wear for men? Ties have had their 100 years, let’s have something else.”
I definitely don’t have a dog in the necktie fight, but I’ll tell you what I tell men around the office with they bitch about their neckties: You wear a bra, pantyhose, and heels and I’ll wear a necktie and we’ll see who cries uncle first. ;-p
(BTW, if businessmen got together and decided to drop neckties as office wear, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all. I grew up in an era when women NEVER wore pants to work, at least in an office setting; I haven’t worn a skirt/dress to work or anyplace else in 10 years, or even owned one, and I work in a fairly formal office setting. The change can be made if enough businessmen decide to make it. Go for it.)
Hispanic men, like black men, are well-known for liking curvy voluptuous women such as Marilyn Monroe. Hip hop videos tend to feature well-built women as well as the Spanish-language channels such as Univision. There have been fashion models with good body builds in recent times. Cindy Crawford comes to mind (she was my favorite pin up girl). I think most men like well-built women. Those that do not tend to like Asian women.
I always liked C. S. Lewis’s take on this in the Screwtape Letters. Not that I think there are devils motivating it, but it all comes in cycles, like Annoying Old Guy said, cycling around what is normal to be something unachievable. The conversation in Screwtape Letters is also about how boyish women were depicted in fashion in the 1920’s.
The answer is this: company officers.
Then middle-managers invented the clip-on tie.
I’ll let you figure out how that evolved.
Hint.
Gosh, Barbara, if you don’t want to wear a bra, I won’t object.
Thanks, Carl. Always the gentleman. ;-p
Neckties?
Wait a minute! This is theyeasr 2009, correct? According to messrs. Kubrick and Clarke, since 2001 we adult males have been wearing little gizmos like bolo tie clasps at our throats. Haven’t we?
Oh no, Barbara. The term you’re looking for is connoisseur of fine art. If there’s anything more beautiful than the shape of a woman — a woman-shaped woman, damn it — or more delightful to the eye than even her smallest, least conscious movement, it has yet to come within my experience.
One of the ironies of the whole thing is that the model in question is actually quite voluptous, and got “fired” for being too fat: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/fashion/2009/10/14/2009-10-14_model_fired_for_being_too_fat.html
For people who like curvy women, check out Christina Hendricks (from Mad Men) in Esquire a few months ago (but take your heart medicine first).
Sometimes I want to blame Twiggy. At least that’s where this nonsense seemed to start…
One would think that the continuing success of Playboy, Penthouse, Maxim and assorted other men’s magazines, would give *somebody* in the fashion world the hint that we vote with our wallets, and for the most part, (straight) men like women with CURVES.
And if dressing to appeal to straight men is part of the whole purpose here, then it’s counterproductive (and unhealthy for any women who try to achieve this anorexic body-type).
But hey. I’m just a straight male, what do I know…?
There’s more than a little truth in Annoying Old Guy’s comments.
Personally, I like slender — but not emaciated — women. But, then again, I run or swim or both six days a week to stay in some sort of decent condition.
It is all too possible to shift public behavior with well organized campaigns.
I don’t know how many fashion designers are gay. There is a popular belief that men in the arts are more likely to be gay than the normal population. That belief is not true. A gay construction worker, to use one example, is much more likely to face hostility from people with whom he associates than a gay artist. He is therefore more likely to keep his orientation secret. Artists don’t give a damn about sexual orientation. Well, most of us don’t.
Anyone who is complaining about these women not being attractive completely misunderstands the purpose of “high fashion”, and how high fashion differs from “clothing.”
Clothing is supposed to make the wearer look good. If you see me walking down the street and think “Nice suit!”, then the suit has failed its purpose. You should think “Damn, Brock looks good in that suit”, or even better “Hey Brock, looking good today!”. The suit should not draw attention to itself.
High fashion is completely different. When you look at fashion, if you think “Wow, Filippa Hamilton is hot”, then the fashion has failed its purpose. You’re supposed to think “Wow, Ralph Lauren is a genius!” or “Edgy!”.
And that’s precisely why the models have the physique of a hat rack – because that’s what they are. If the models were too attractive, who would be looking at the clothes? Does anyone notice what Salma Hayek wears? Normally not, and at a fashion show that would be a disaster.
The birth control pill thing is typical of Freaknomics-style cool ideas which don’t hold up under inspection.
My argument with it is this: Japan. The pill is a cultural flop in Japan, they prefer to rely on condoms and mass abortion, so the birth control pill never caught on in a big way. Meanwhile, the Japanese mass “masculine” ideal has been weedy, feminine, and glam in a way which would (and will!) get you marked down as fundamentally weird in American mass culture. The Japanese adolescent female preference is for effeminate painted lilies who make the American denizens of Tiger Beat look like John Wayne in comparison.
I also offer you the social example of the fujoshi (“rotten women”), the female equivalent of otaku. Their dirty comic book preferences are heavily BL (“boy’s love”) and yaoi, with a serious side-line in imaginary pairings of straight male characters in mainstream works. Now, mind you, much the same thing goes on, this side of the great pond. But I can pretty much guarantee you that the fujoshi haven’t been addled by exposure to birth control pills.
Although the alleged pseudo-estrogenic effects of prolonged soya consumption might have something to do with it.
So many words I’d google, Mitch, except for my fear that I’d want to claw my eyes out afterward.
> Carl Pham Says:
> October 22nd, 2009 at 10:04 am
> So many words I’d google, Mitch, except for my fear that I’d want
> to claw my eyes out afterward.
Come to the dark side, we have cookies!
😉
Frank,
Twiggy didn’t hire herself. Someone “found’ her and liked the look.
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Chuck,
you’ve got to be kidding right? About gay + fashion designer, I mean?
I’m no watcher of such things, but all you have to do is turn on TV or go to the movies. If fashion, home design, celebrity interviewing, etc. are MENTIONED, the male voices are peculiar and the hand movements are not those from the NHL.
I’ve worked construction, and I was in the military, I’ve been in private industry, I’ve run my own businesses, my experience is that gay men and women are in all walks of life. BUT, there are certain jobs and careers that seem to be more attractive, than others, to the gay men in our country. It has gotten to be part of GAY CULTURE to be associated with arts, fashion, food, blah, blah, blah.
Oddly, it seems that gay women are much less susceptible to that intra-culture stereotyping.
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And Carl is writing the poetry of MY heart too.
“If there’s anything more beautiful than the shape of a woman — a woman-shaped woman, damn it — or more delightful to the eye than even her smallest, least conscious movement, it has yet to come within my experience.”
Amen Brother, Amen.
So many words I’d google, Mitch, except for my fear that I’d want to claw my eyes out afterward.
Don’t worry, Carl. The lobotomy comes free.
Sharpen,
I don’t pay much attention to fashion designers. I can’t think of any with whom I am acquainted here in DC. I do know that quite a few people think people in the arts are more likely to be gay than “normal” people. That isn’t true. I do know some gays and lesbians. They don’t fit the stereotypes — with a few exceptions. I do remember reading some research that indicates gays and lesbians are not more common in the arts — and at least one study that did show they were more likely to be found in construction than the arts. It’s not a topic I spend much time thinking about or researching myself.