A few years ago, I was having lunch at Moro in Clerkenwell Market with the then women's page editor of the Guardian. Sitting at the next table were a group of adoring acolytes hanging on the every word of a flat bloke with a blonde bristly head like a pig, dressed in combats encasing thighs which oozed like over-ripe Camembert sluggishly running off the edge of his chair.
That, said my lunch companion, is Alexander McQueen.
And a spasm of pure rage passed through me. Who was this fat bastard to tell women that they were obese if they couldn't fit into a size 10? To make clothes that half the population couldn't wear? I am tired of fat men telling non-skeletal women that they don't exist. Granted, McQueen, like Lagerfeld, with the assistance of the finest trainers money can buy and no obligation to prepare family meals three times a day, have slimmed down, or in the case of Lagerfeld, turned himself into his own corpse, but fashion is full of fat men (sorry Alber, I really love you in every other way) giving normal-sized women an inferiority complex.
I had my picture take a couple of weeks ago to go with a magazine piece I'm doing . There was a photographer, a picture editor, a make-up artist and the manager of Hobbs all involved in this operation, and after the make-up artist had bemoaned that she couldn't find a pair of trousers to fit her in Zara, the photographer said that one her friends was a plus-sized model. 'What's plus size?' I asked. It's size 12 (US8) she told me.
Myself, I'd put every man in fashion who weighs over 150 pounds on the Atkins diet. And don't come back until you can fit into skinny jeans.
That, said my lunch companion, is Alexander McQueen.
And a spasm of pure rage passed through me. Who was this fat bastard to tell women that they were obese if they couldn't fit into a size 10? To make clothes that half the population couldn't wear? I am tired of fat men telling non-skeletal women that they don't exist. Granted, McQueen, like Lagerfeld, with the assistance of the finest trainers money can buy and no obligation to prepare family meals three times a day, have slimmed down, or in the case of Lagerfeld, turned himself into his own corpse, but fashion is full of fat men (sorry Alber, I really love you in every other way) giving normal-sized women an inferiority complex.
I had my picture take a couple of weeks ago to go with a magazine piece I'm doing . There was a photographer, a picture editor, a make-up artist and the manager of Hobbs all involved in this operation, and after the make-up artist had bemoaned that she couldn't find a pair of trousers to fit her in Zara, the photographer said that one her friends was a plus-sized model. 'What's plus size?' I asked. It's size 12 (US8) she told me.
Myself, I'd put every man in fashion who weighs over 150 pounds on the Atkins diet. And don't come back until you can fit into skinny jeans.
9 comments:
I love that: Lagerfeld slimmed down to his own corpse. And those collars he wears makes him look like a pig's head on a plate. Presumably someone finds him attractive.
Ferre, of course, was fat. But Ferre, of course. is dead.
Ferre. Another one!
On a shopping trip for Cheap Mondays with my girlfriend, I decided to see just how "unisex" their jeans really are. The words "sausage" and "burst" come to mind.
I think at the end of shows designers should have to walk out in one of their own creations.
I saw Helmut Lang walk out at the end of his runway show at Paris S/S in 2002. A few strands of lank greasy hair descended from his sweaty scalp and his belly wobbled as he waved.
Thank you.
Thank you for raking out those tubs of goo for the hypocrites they are. Lagerfeld and his horsemeat, feh. He's a clown. Time to design something NEW, Karl!
I'm 5'8" and I weigh 135lbs., because I lift weights. I have low body fat, and lean muscle. But somehow, this makes me an undesirable "size."
I wear a UK size 12. In the US, I wear anything from a 4 to an 8. It's all vanity sizing.
Who knows what size we are? And who cares?
I believe I read somewhere about a study that said that when people are skinny that they tend to see heavier people as being more beautiful and vice versa. It supposedly has something to do with whether the threat of starvation is greater than the threat of problems associated with obesity. I wish I could find the study again because right now it's making a lot of sense.
In fairness to Ferre, he did do a plus line, Gianfranco Ferre Forma.
Great post! Although I have to admit to being just a little impressed that Lagerfeld has managed to maintain his skinny corpse on a diet of Diet Coke and meat pellets all these years!
And after reading the recent New Yorker profile of Alber where he discusses being fat and extremely sensitive about it, I can't lump him in with the others. Obviously he employs skinny models for his runway and advertising, but I didn't get the same dictatorial attitude from him about who can wear his clothes.
Tell which designers love women and want them to feel beautiful in their clothes?
xx
(as opposed to wanting them to be nothing - literally "a zero")
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