Learning Portfolio Post #3 Plus-zise fashion

 

The image above is an oversized advertisement. Having the curve model standing in the middle of the image surrounded by four other skinny models, the brand’s purpose is very much clear that despite the skinny group of consumers, it is also targeting at the oversized consumers.  The face and the pose of the curve model is showing a strong sense of confidence. Having the model standing right in the middle, the brand is drawing people’s eyes directly to the center of the image which emphasized their purpose. 

I have been giving a lot if thinking about the reading ‘When Brands Use Plus-Size Models and Don’t Make Plus-Size Clothes’ which kinda relates to what I picked for this week’s LP post. The article made an argument that the brands advertise size inclusivity, but don’t care create those offerings. The problem about those oversizing advertisement was that the new oversized offers were very limited in color and sizes, and those ones which were available online sold out in a speed of light. This may not happens to every brand in the world, but the author did list a few examples showing that some of the brand were using the image to attract more consumers to buy their product, but at the same time, fail their consumers. 

If we observe carefully, a lot of women in the ancient paintings were not skinny at all, in fact, they have bellies and if it was in the modern world, they would be considered ‘fat’, but those types of body were considered beauty back then. Why is that? Since when the society has changed its perspectives on women in general? 

Nowadays, on the runway shows, we only see skinny models, and it is very rare that any of the brand will use the plus-sized models. In the online article ‘When Brands Use Plus-Size Models and Don’t Make Plus-Size Clothes’, Lauren Downing Peters, the author, has mentioned that the fashion industry has largely ignored the clothing needs of fat women. At the same time, images of non-slender and nonwhite bodies are nowhere to be found within the pages of the high-fashion press and in advertising culture at large. One way that I can think of is that the brands are trying to manipulate the social perspective on beauty by trying only produce certain size range of clothing, and smaller size the better because in that way they can save a large amount of fabrics. 

In last week’s reading ‘The Dressed Body’, Joanna Entwistle has stated that according to Douglas, the body is highly restricted medium of expression that express the social pressure brought to bear on it. Our ways of being in the body are crucially shaped by the social practices of our culture. Advertisement, in a way, plays a significant role in social practices.