Jezebel has been doing a great job with the un-photo shop expose lately. I especially liked this week’s reveal of Mad Men photoshopping, which seems so ironic given that curvy, fleshy bodies were all the rage in the early 60s. (Do you know Mad Men even has a contract clause that forbids the actresses from getting too muscular, since women didn’t have biceps and triceps and defined lats in the halcyon days of Betty Crocker?)
Too bad for many of us those days are long over. And they’re not just over; someone straight up dropped a bomb on them, nuked them, shot them dead in the water.
In other words, you can forget what Nigel said in The Devil Wears Prada. (I’m referring to the scene, for those of you that missed it, where fashion stylist extraordinaire Nigel tells innocent ingénue Andrea that size four is the new six and two is the new four.) It’s not about two or four: zero is reigning queen supreme, the number to reach (or plummet to, depending on how you look at it). On the clothes racks, sweater after sweater after sweater lines up under the magic number zero, an endless parade of circles staring you in the face like a bunch of furious, hungry mouths.
Ask the sales girl (who of course happens to also be a size 0) for anything higher, and she’ll flash you the “Pretty Woman” look, a look of pity mixed with barely concealed contempt. That’s because the magic zero halo doesn’t float above your head.
For those that have been so blessed, those that have the sheer will and ability to abstain from carbs, sugar and calories in general, in theory a magical world opens up. A world where all clothes fit just right, nothing makes your butt look big, and the constant hunger pains are worth it all. In this world, as Kate Moss once said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” – allegedly. That’s what Cosmopolitan and Vogue and all the others would have us believe, anyways.
(Nevermind that I’ve yet to meet one dieter who feels her life is complete and perfect now that she can slide into a size zero and wear it like a hula hoop. Nevermind that I’ve never met a dieter who hasn’t eyed my lunchtime tuna fish sandwich like a lion watching a baby antelope. Nevermind that everything is not ok when you exclude 4 of the 5 food groups from your daily diet. But it will be, these dieters assure me, when they lose two more pounds. )
Of course, there are the girls out there who are, as they say, “naturally skinny,” who slip into a size zero effortlessly without forgoing the French fries or skipping dessert. But when I think of all the women I’ve known over the course of my life, I have to rack my brain for those who actually possess this unique and coveted genetic disposition. And I can come up with two. When I think of my college roommates, old soccer teammate, girls I waited tables with, girls I went to the bar with, girls I stayed up too late and told all my darkest secrets to, there’s this simple truth that no one wants to admit or speak of: Those. Skinny. Women. Are. Not. Like. Most. Of. Us.
The rest of us lean to the right of zero and more towards the zaftig number 8; as my friend Conti calls it, “the Mrs. Snowwoman shape.” Round on the top, round on the bottom. We’ve got curves like rolling hills, curves for making babies and nursing babies and slinging babies around on hips. Curves to curl up in, to wrap yourself around, to get lost in.
And these are the bodies I remember from my 1980s girlhood, when big hair, big shoulder pads, and hourglass figures were in. But somewhere along the way, somebody (was it you Calvin Klein?) pulled out their sword and sliced curvy number 8 right in two. Bottom severed from top, reduced to half of her former self, she was just two gaping zeros, holes that women tried to fill with lettuce and cabbage soup and diet pills, holes that women were endlessly trying to disappear into.
Some say there are trends in history regarding women’s bodies, and that it’s only a matter of time before curvy is once again desirable. Some point to the flappers of the 20s and how their sylph-like shapes were heralded, and the juxtaposition of these bodies with those of the next generation, the heart-stopping voluptuousness of Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren, so worshipped just a mere 60 years ago, the era and shape that Mad Men now embraces. These people would say that there is always a swing back and forth between lithe and curvy, like a pendulum, like a child who can’t decide if he wants cherry or strawberry.
But ladies, I would ask you not to wait for the pendulum’s swing, the next fashion revolution, the newest It Girl whose form will have us all scrambling towards a new ideal. Zero may reign for another 40 or 400 years; it may give way to something else.
In the meantime, love your body. Whether you know it or not, your body is a miracle of evolution, one of the most perfect inventions on this planet. Love your body so much that you stop trying to make it fit a number someone else randomly decided on. That number, whatever it may be, will always be changing, photoshopped away by magazine editors until it is just out of reach. But while our fickle and restless society will always be changing its demands, your beautiful, natural shape--whether it’s a 2 or a 12 or a 22—is a constant that will always be there.
