Does anyone else read Marie Claire magazine. I like it but have only been receiving it the last few months. Uneqivocally, I disappointed again and again with the standing feature "Big Girl in a Skinny World." I think the clothing is poorly fitted to the girl's body and does nothing to show that a sizable gal can look great. I am beginning to wonder who it is that is editing this article actually. It actually is upsetting to me to think it could be less than pure motives. Does anyone else feel this way?
ETA: The girl featured each month writes the article and wears a size 20. She is absolutely adorable--just in the wrong clothing IMHO.
Last edited by Thighs Be Gone; 01-17-2010 at 04:16 PM.
I just looked up up. The articles are pretty good, but i agree the clothes do not suit her body. Big girls should never be in skinny jeans, no matter how fashionable they are.
I saw the girl who writes the column on a segment on the Rachel Ray show. Her outfit seemed kind of tight on her and not that flattering as it could have been.
Perhaps she really does but I think part of the editors job is to make sure all articles are on point--same as any other article in the magazine. I really question the magazine for letting it go like that. Flip to any other page in the magazine and anyone can see the difference in the clothing choices, make up, etc.
I wonder how tall she is? I just saw a picture of her and she looked horrid. Yeah she can name off top fashion designers, and so can I, but I would never take fashion advice from somebody who looked like that. She looked frumpy dumpy. I wonder if she gets to pick her own clothes or if they are picking them for her? Are they just trying to squeeze her into the biggest size "normal" designer brands have so they don't have to constantly resort to LB and torrid in her articles?
I noticed something similar recently on a "makeover" episode of a talk show (I don't remember which one), and the "after" results were absolutely horribe.
The makeover "expert" was a stylist for the designer clothing line, and I really think the object was to showcase their clothing line, not to flatter the poor volunteer from the audience turned victim (which really did a diservice to both).
I felt like the kid in "the emperor's new clothes," when everyone in the audience clapped (I'm sure they were prompted), and the hostess of the show, the stylist, and the fashion victim GUSHED on and on about how "great" she looked, and I was thinking "am I missing something, because she looked much better in the before shot."
They broke all of the "fat girl rules," and NOT with good results (often the rules can be broken, but for goodness sakes, know when to do it, and when not to).
The Rule: Fat girls shouldn't wear pale dresses or skirts.
The suit they put her in was a pale blue or gray (I'm mildly color blind). The stylist bragged that it emphasized the woman's curves, nope - it emphasized every bulge. It didn't skim the curves (which looks great) it clung to them (which doesn't).
The Rule: Fat girls shouldn't wear easily wrinkled linen.
Pale, wrinkly linen looks cruddy on anyone (despite it being trendy in the 90's, if I remember correctly). A dark color would have masked some of the wrinking, so choosing pale linen was a double faux pas. It looked like the suit was made from a plastic bag. Blegh.
The Rule: Fat girls shouldn't wear short or tight skirts unless they have GREAT knees.
The broke both (of course). The skirt was too tight and too short, and they had her in some sort of undergarment that packed her into the skirt (looked ready to pop). Instead of soft and round, it made her look like she was shaped like and a firm as a boiled egg.
The Rule: Fat girls should wear jacket that end before or after, but never at her widest point.
The jacket coming to her hips, and had the effect of making her seem to have no curves - just bulges.
The Rule: Fat girls should never tuck in a blouse.
If a plus-sized woman has an hourglass figure, this can work. This woman did not. So again it made her look like an egg.
The Rule: Fat girls shouldn't wear a belt (or should choose them carefully).
Again, this can work out great if the woman has a defined waist - or if the belt creates the illusion of a defined waist (for example a wide dark belt at the waistline over an untucked paler blouse that is bloused). With the tightly tucked in blouse, the dark, skinny belt just made her look like an egg wearing a belt.
One of the rules they did follow that maybe they shouldn't have was "fat girls look great in V-neck necklines," which they took a little too far (I don't know how they got her boobs to stay up with a neckline plunging that far). I don't know whether it was the design of the bra, or whether the woman had no boobs, but the lack of cleavage made her look like a cross-dresser in the after shot (in her "before" t-shirt, it wasn't that obvious, so I think it was the
bra).
About the only rule they didn't break was putting the poor woman in horizontal stripes (or stripes of any kind). Thank Goodness.
I know I'm ranting, but dressing plus-sized women isn't rocket science. Every few years, a great book comes out on the subject (going back to the 70's at least), and a lot of the "rules" are still the same. It almost seemed like they were intentionally breaking each one in an effort to prove that plus-sized women didn't have to follow the rules to look good.
Although because she didn't look good, there was a major flaw in their logic.
I just subscribed to Marie Claire and read the issue where the girl was talking about bras. I was disappointed just because they didn't provide options for those of us with really big chests, just up to a DD or so (which wouldn't fit me even if I duct taped 'em down first)... I'll have to read some more of her articles before I form an official opinion, but the picture of her they put with the article did make her look kind of frumpy.
Marie Claire-BIG GIRL IN A SKINNY WORLD
