The hegemony of the low-rise pant
Until recently, I hadn’t really minded the fashion known as low-rise pants—you know, the ones that fit so far down on the hips that they only look good on that tiny (in more ways than one) subset of the female population that’s completely lean, hipless, and stomachless, a group usually found only between the ages of eleven and twenty, and relatively rare even in that cohort.
Commentary in the press about low-rise pants has mostly focused on the ubiquitous “cleavage” (of the rear variety) that occurs, whether on purpose or by accident, when the wearer sits or bends. But being the fashion libertarian that I am, I figure it’s up to the wearers. If they happen to want to expose us all to a portion of the anatomy heretofore only flaunted by paunchy middle-aged plumbers, it doesn’t upset me all that much.
Until now, the rest of us could easily manage to avoid wearing low-rise pants which make us look like dreck: blubby and chubby and a good fifty pounds heavier than we actually are. We just didn’t buy them.
But now the situation is getting serious. Now I must voice an objection. This year—as I discovered when I went to do a little shopping the other day—it has become well-nigh impossible to find any other sort of pants. The fashion powers-that-be have decreed that all of us—fat or thin, young or old—will be wearing our pants in a manner designed (literally) to accentuate and call major attention to the largest portion of our lower anatomies.
Okay, that’s not absolutely true; in fact, there are a few other types of pants to be found here and there, if one looks carefully. For instance, the petite section where I am sometimes known to linger offers—in addition to the low-risers—a fairly generous selection of elastic-waisted polyester monstrosities for the little old ladies who often shop there. When one has given up on fashion entirely, and the only function of clothes becomes to cover one’s nakedness with the least possible flair and expense and the maximum comfort, no doubt that’s the way to go.
But fortunately, I’m not there yet. And unfortunately, my pants choices have dwindled down to a precious few, none of them very good.
What’s more, it’s difficult to tell the lowness of the pants rise when the clothing is on the hanger; one has to go through the strain and ignominy of trying the things on. A very very very short zipper is one clue, but hardly an invariable one. I’ve taken pants with longish zippers to the dressing room only to find they’re a come-on, a decoy cleverly and insidiously designed to sucker people like me into trying them on in hopes of finding a more reasonable amount of coverage than they offer.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that slacks have to go right up to one’s waist (although they used to, for years and years and years, and I never saw anything wrong with it; after all, most women’s waists are smaller than their hips). But they need to arrive somewhere within an inch or two of the general vicinity to prevent the formation of an extra roll (or rolls), and the thousand natural shocks that female flesh is heir to.
In researching this post (yes, I researched it) I discovered that I am not the first to report this phenomenon. It even has a name: muffin top.
Now, a muffin top of the old-fashioned variety is ordinarily a very pleasant thing:
Whereas a muffin top of the new-fangled sort is considerably less so:
Note that the photo of this particular lady was chosen because, although she’s hardly model-thin, she most definitely is not fat. In fact, in more normal pants, she would look just fine, thank you very much.
But alas, there are no normal pants anymore.
OK, I agree the 2nd photo is a bit of a put off.
I have also seen many many many…just really, too many…women wearing low risers that really should have considered a different fashion statement.
On the other hand, when a young 20 something lady CAN wear them – and wear them well – I admit it is quite the attention getter!
Even wifey doesn’t fuss at me too much anymore as it’s too obvious to ignore sometimes.
Perhaps a sign should be posted – “You must be approximatley this age and this weight to purchase this attire.”
Maybe you should consider editing the post to include an example of how it SHOULD look when one can wear this type of clothing?
Ya know, just for comparison sake and to save us guys the effort at research?
The “cleavage” bothers me depending upon whom it is. For example during last springs soft ball games one 30+ parent kept mooning us all, it was difficult to concentrate on the games. A tiny “coin slot” on a teenager is ok, but half the moon on a mature woman is just ridiculous.
What’s worse is when they wear a short top to expose those much in demand female fashion accessories, the “tramp stamp” and navel piercing.
Exposing this trash on that blubber when shopping at the local grocery store tends to keep my food bill down and suppresses my appetite.
So thank you, feminists. You’ve come a long way, baby!
I think it is disgusting to see a tween or even a teen wearing a pair of low rise which shows off her thong. Sure they wear it well, but it’s slutty behaviour in my book.
I haven’t shopped for jeans since mid winter, but I find the Gap has jeans that aren’t to low as does the Gloria Vanderbilt line at department stores like Kohl’s.
I do a lot of work that involves going to construction sites.
One of the hazards of the job is resisting the urge to put your own eyes out when you round a corner and there is a severe case of hairy plumber’s crack staring back at you from some guy completely oblivious to the concept of belt or suspenders.
Kind of makes ya wanna pull out the ol’ duct tape and suggest they cover it over!
The idea that a lovely young lady can actually wear something like that and make it look good is refreshing from my perspective!
Guess I’ll find a few long skirts and carry on.
CZ,
OK, I’m actually with you on the naval piercing and tramp stamp.
Ironic that they apply those as a way of being “individual”, yet it ultimately ends up making them look more similar after apparently every 18 year old has applied the same tactic.
Does anyone rememder body suits? In the seventies they were popular with hipster pants. They were shirts for ladies/girls that snapped at the crotch and there was very little chance of exposing the rear when worn together.
The only way the “hip hugging” jeans look good on a woman is when the woman in question has the hips of a 12 year old boy, which does not catch my fancy. Normal women, even ones who are not fat, have curvy hips. Therefore, the styles of jeans during the Eighties were more flattering to a woman’s curves.
I was never a fan of the fashions from the Seventies. A little anecdote will do. For my first three years of high school (1969-1972) I attended an all male Catholic boarding school. It was rigorous and academically-intensive, but I thrived there. Due to funding problems, the school had to close and for my senior year of high school I had to go to the local one in the city I grew up in (Peabody, Massachusetts). It was a huge place. I went from a junior class of ten students at the boarding school to a coed huge institution where my senior graduating class was over 700 students. Culture shock. I call it my lost year, since I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me.
Anyway, I had a chemistry class and all the students were sophomores to seniors. Interestingly, most of the students were females. Now, I was always a shy kid who just wanted to fade into the woodwork wherever I was. In this class I was surrounded on four sides by girls and three of them were fawning over me (I just do not understand why to this day). One of them, a sophomore girl, who sat in front of me (it was the year 1972-73) wore the hip hugging jeans and she had a flattering figure. She wore them so low you knew she wasn’t wearing underwear. It was very distracting to this young Catholic boy, who was trying to not notice and to pay attention to the difficult to decipher chemical equations being explained by the teacher. And I mean, this girl was outrageous and you could see the tops of her cheeks. Furthermore, she was always dropping hints to me to take her out (I didn’t know how to ask a girl out and I had no car); she was a Catholic girl of Italian ancestry and quite pretty. Many years later, during the Eighties, when Madonna was warming up via MTV, I used to think of this girl Linda as a kind of premonition of Madonna.
SAB – yes, I remember body suits. Again, only a certain physical type of woman could pull off the look.
FredjrH – ahhhh, don’t really know what to say….but you do paint a vivid image. She must have burned herself into your retinas…lol.
Oh how I feel your pain. A few discoveries I’ve made in the shopping trenches: Dockers have earned their sadly less-than-hip connotation, but they do make some pants that are wearable by those who would rather reveal less hip! So do a few online retailers such as Coldwater Creek and Lands’ End. I can’t speak to the availability of petite sizes in any of these brands and furthermore, they are not exactly fashion-forward. If that’s what you’re looking for, all I can suggest is to bring a tape measure along when you shop.
Now, for another significant fashion question: several women of my acquaintance would very much like to know if there is anyplace out there where it’s possible to find a pretty and chic dress that is Not Sleeveless. ??? Anyone?
Muffin top. Never heard that one. I came up with a handle of my own, based on a variety of pastry never seen anymore which was one passion of my vanished youth: popover.
Well, you could see if there are any of those Fruit-of-the-Loom costumes available and dress up like an apple.
Neo, this trend – excluding all possible cuts except one – started about a year ago, and you’re right: it intensified to the point that any cut other than “low-waist” is positively extinct.
[btw, Scottie and SAB: you missed the point of the post. It could very well be that the 30+ woman that was such a sore view in her low-cut was not able to find any other pants in the store. ]
One example: last time I bought a pair of pants at Ann Taylor (whose “petite” patterns I had favored for some time: they acknowledged the existence of slim waists and wider hips ) was this January. I bought them even though they were not my favorite color, on the strength of the cut: just a half an inch below my waistline, and the waist part actually tapered in at the top – what a rarity! Just now I went to their website and tried to find a pair with normal waist height. And I found it- one in 47 models!
Tatyana,
No, I don’t think we missed the point. I suspect we’re just easily distracted…lol.
Tatyana: The 30+ lady is either in denial that she is no longer 18 or she is a pathetic slave to fashion. The show “What Not to Wear” addresses this subject on a regular basis. Dillards has pants that fit all figures.
Thinking further, I’d venture an explanation for this situation – not a perfect one, and not by any means one and only, but possibly still valid:
I’ve been looking in the “design and media” jobs section at Craigslist fro a few months, and there is a definite trend: majority of the open positions, including the women fashion/apparel patternmaking and design lie in the “intern” or “junior designer” segment. Companies are laying off intermediate designers with decades of experience on them (which translates to higher salaries), and hire instead inexperienced recent graduates. Variety in design cost money; a solid professional with many years of practice behind her can produce more original designs or patterns (all of which would be doable immediately) in any given time than a person with 1-3 years of rookie work. Since more of this kind of workforce is now unemployed, and the remaining employees have to carry increased work load, the quality of design work suffers: it’s easier to just follow one template that proved successful, when you’re pressed for time.
I’m sure there are other factors, but it seems to me this explanation is more feasible than blaming feminists. In the same logic we might as well blame the entire female Chinese-American population: the current fashion seems to suit average Asian female figure much better than other ethnicities!
SAB – do they really?
OK, on a more serious note – well, slightly more serious anyway – has anyone considered opening a clothing line that actually does fit the average female figure?
I’m not being sarcastic, but if the situation is this bad it should do very well and I would think, based upon Tatyana’s observations, that designers are available on a ready basis.
“What’s worse is when they wear a short top to expose those much in demand female fashion accessories, the ‘tramp stamp’ and navel piercing”.
Actually, what’s even worse than this is when the short top exposes a hang-belly. Ugh! Just because you can wear something doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
I had a fairly jarring experience a few months back with “butt cleavage” in a Jakarta restaurant, of all places. The sweet young (18-20) Muslim girl in jilbab (headscarf) and jeans came in with her girlfriends and sat down with her back to me at the next table. Sure enough, her top didn’t go down far enough, and her pants rode down as well, to reveal a bright red, and very tiny, thong. Not exactly what I was expecting from an ostensibly “modest” young lady. No muffin top or tramp stamp, either.
Scottie: great idea, except to start a new clothing line, in current economic climate, you have to prepare yourself for years of negative balance sheet.
As in all other industries.
The economics is the same, be it fashion or agriculture.
Tatyana: (SAB – do they really?)
Yes ma’am, check out the Alex Marie “Alexa” pants. IMO they are a flattering cut for any female body type.
I wasn’t clear in my last comment.
The problem is not the demand is low. It’s the low liquidity; the availability of loans for investment, the taxes on business, & &.
The apparel manufacturers depend on wholesale/retail buyers: these are their end customer. If the department stores have limited funds for new purchases, the apparel manufacturer will not return his investment in design and production. And we all know how many big-chains had to close branches of their department stores , starting approx. last November.
Tatyana,
I know a young lady who did actually try to start her own line of jeans. I haven’t heard anything else about it for a while, so it may well have cratered.
The interesting thing is, she had samples made in China and shipped into the US.
Also, wifey years ago was involved in the clothing industry. Her job was to handle the paperwork for shipping in and out of the country.
The company would purchase material from Asia, ship it into the US, cut it in the US, then ship it to Central America for assembly into garments, then ship it back into the US for sale.
At the time there was some sort of economic sense in this arrangement due to tariffs, if I understood at the time correctly.
It was amazing how little they paid workers in the plants to assemble the garments, and what kind of markup they had on their products by the time it got back into the US.
Of course that was about a decade ago, and I’m not a big advocate of giving the Chinese any more of our industry, but it may be easier than first assumed if one had the proper resources.
SAB – do we all now have to stick to just ONE brand/manufacturer, regardless of our tastes in styles/colors and conditions of our wallet?
I don’t think anybody said it is absolutely impossible to find pair of pants to fit; we are saying that it became increasingly more difficult. In – what, 12, 15 pages- on Dillard’s “pants” department you could only recommend ONE brand- don’t you think this is a bit rare?
Are we becoming “one cut fit all”, socialistic “no retail choice” market?
Whether or not Dillard’s has pants for everyone, they are href=”http://kivera.dillards.com/”>not everywhere, and in particular, not in the Northeast, where Neo — and I — go shopping.
Doggone it, my link did not work. I see what I did wrong, too. Kindly avert your eyes from my html incompetence and use this link for a map of Dillard’s stores:
http://kivera.dillards.com/
My wife deplores the current fashions, pants and dresses included. She is not alone. A lot of women in their thirties and older would prefer attractive, yet less trampy clothing. I would prefer that women be comfortable with what they wear, and that includes shoes. Only time my wife wears heels is for formal occasions. Smart gal, she.
I often wonder what it is like inside the minds of some of these fashion designers? Can’t be anything I’d want to ponder…
It must be a completely different psychology for men. We wear what WE want to wear, generally (exceptions, exist, Tatyana – my disclaimer). Yes, a lot of your urban metrosexual males will break the mold as far as that goes. But 99% of the guys I work with and hang out with are not slaves to fashion. You could go into my closet and just about anything I wear to work would be acceptable sixty years ago, thirty years ago, twenty years ago, and will be years from now. So, what’s with that?
FredjrH,
While I tend to prefer fashion from the 80’s era (sensible, comfortable, and generally looked good for male and female), there was a time I admit I had difficulty finding jeans that fit properly.
It seems for a brief period during I guess the early 90’s (?) clothing manufacturer’s were under the impression all men wanted to be hip hop gangsta rappers or something, as the only jeans I could find were extremely baggy….
Blissfully, that problem seemed to pass quickly and was over within about a year.
Me too, Mrs. Whatsit, me too. New York is becoming a desert where well-cut and variable-pattern clothes are concerned…
Scottie:
It’s not only tariffs. It’s the cost of labor: they paid low wages in China and South America only according to US standard of living. On those wages you could feed a family in South America, Belarus or Vietnam – the “basket of goods” worth less there. If the apparel co would attempted to hire same skill-level assembly workers here, their labor expense will skyrocket – mostly because the labor is largely unionized (see the sad GM story), very few customers will be able to afford $150 jeans, and the profit would sink.
Which I’m afraid now will be the situation.
Tatyana: (“you could only recommend ONE brand- don’t you think this is a bit rare?”)
I could have recommended more. If you want to look a bit further there are a lot more than just one. But that’s up to you. My work here is done. Dillards is not paying me for my time. LOL!
Tatyana,
You’re right. A couple of true stories wifey told me about at the time….
First story:
Some company types were scouting out factories in a central American country to work with when their rental car over heated on a mountain road.
There were a bunch of village ladies carrying water in pots on their head up the mountain from a stream below, so the guy paid the woman a dollar for her bucket of water to pour into the radiator.
They were immediately swarmed by all of the other women trying to sell their water as well.
Seems he gave her about a month’s worth of pay.
Second story:
Wifey actually saw the payroll for one of the plants down there. It was for an entire month, for the entire staff and employees, and it was less than $1,000.
You can’t compete with those labor costs if you want to make the product in the US.
SAB: or, I’m not sayinng there is no solution. There are plenty.
I could shop at European boutiques. Or Neiman Marcus. Or go to a taylor and order custom-made clothes (as I used to do, routinely, in Ukraine before emigrating to US – and it cost me less then ready-made brands like Levis, f.ex.)
I could even learn how to improve my sewing technique and start serving myself.
But is it all feasible and affordable, for everyone, in terms of time and money involved?
Tatyana: Walmart (which is everywhere) has the “George” brand that is very affordable and the quaility and design is comparable to any high end department store. Yes, they are probably made by children in Indonesia. I have two pair of dress pants that I have been wearing to work for at least 3 years, I’m sure my co-workers are not pleased.
SAB,
I’m glad you found clothes that suit you. And – yes, I’m happy for children in Indonesia, too. I’m all for mutually beneficial global trade, if it wasn’t clear from my previous comments yet.
I’m not sure what is your point. That whose who want to find clothes to their liking, could? And that the tendency that Neo wrote about doesn’t exist? Well, we’d rather believe our lying eyes, then. Sorry.
Here’s an article that appeared a while back in USA Today about the frustrations of Women Of A Certain Age trying to find non-frumpy clothing that fits. Although the article provides reason for hope in that it describes a number of retailers who are at least trying to make clothes that women out of adolescence can wear, you will note, if you read the whole thing, a possible reason for the Wardrobe Despair of Neo and Tatyana and Mrs Whatsit: Talbot’s idea of a good way to make its pants appeal to mature women is to get rid of the ones with higher waists!
http://tinyurl.com/4sr3nc
Tatyana: My point was in reply to your question: “But is it all feasible and affordable, for everyone, in terms of time and money involved?” My post was meant only to be helpful nothing more or less.
SAB – thank you for trying to assist us in our quest for Pants-That-Fit.
I can also suggest another possibility, in addition to Walmart ($15 range), Dillard ($100 range) and Neiman Marcus ($500 range). There is also Salvation Army stores and thrift shops…where you can go hunting for the high-waist jeans of the 80s (if you don’t mind the tapered-at-the-ankle look) or the sleeved summer dresses of the 90s. What a joy!
OK, as I guy I never got the movie. Now I think I finally understand.
“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” was all about a single pair of pants that a group of friends found they could all wear on alternating days!
Happy hunting, beware the mothballs.
I’ve probably kept Eddie Bauer solvent the last few years buying pants through their catalogs….
The ones that have saved me are the Bremerton slim fit, the Blakely and the Mercer. They come out in different fabrics in different seasons. So comfortable are they that I buy several of the same one at a time and have my seamstress cut them off and make feisty 3/4 lengths and also higher capri lengths. It’s worth the cost to me! Look goods and feels like a million.
Also, ladies, please note, the Eddie Bauer catalog tells you where the pant sits to the waist on almost every offering…..the words “sits at waist” and in a pinch…. “sits slightly below waist” are music to my ears.
Yes, Scottie, in fact, that book begins with a scene in which four friends of wildly different shapes and sizes discover that they each fit perfectly into a pair of ordinary-looking thrift-shop jeans, and furthermore, that the jeans make each one of them look great. Now, from the female perspective, that’s magic!
It is very difficult to resist pouring an ice cold drink down the plumbers crack on anyone – young or old, male or female, when observed from behind in the bleachers at ones daughters’ softball games. Especially when the waist band of the thong underwear of the wearer is much higher than the waist line of the pants when seated. My daughters never made it out of the store, much less the house, with that clothing on.
However, I have enjoyed the view on other women with younger bodies and minds. What do you mean, “Do I see the hypocrisy in that?” Why, not at all. If you wear it in public, I’m gawking. Same as at the beach.
the “ladies” all want to be like joe the plumber…
yesterday i got to see down several female butt cracks…
i find it odd that they show themselves off all the time… they will wear a thong to the beach.
but they will also hold their skirts as if men can see (they cant unles they are midgets or have mirrors), and thats to prevent them from seeing less than they show at the beach, or show when they wear something else.
absolutely no consistency of thought or action, just whim.
the way i described this new mental state is that its akin to a moronic butterfly that deposits dynamite in its wake as it fritters away complaining that the world cant give her two mutually exclusive things they want.
see my post in prior thread on article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1190675/Youve-got-want-girls-Stop-whining-Has-feminism-women-unhappy-THIS-certainly-will.html
that they only look good on that tiny (in more ways than one) subset of the female population that’s completely lean, hipless, and stomachless, a group usually found only between the ages of eleven and twenty, and relatively rare even in that cohort.
you are describing a homosexual males ideal..
a effeminate male of very young age.
maybe trusting gay men to develope all your looks and things might not be good… since they tend to like overt vulgar expressions of sex and a desier for prepubescent boys that the models they select are greek ideals of male beauty (that real women and not genetic freaks cant reach)
once they finished doing this to women, they have been trying to do the same to men.
Credit Hedi Slimane or blame him. The type of men Mr. Slimane promoted when he first came aboard at Dior Homme some years back (he has since left) were thin to the point of resembling stick figures; the clothes he designed were correspondingly lean. The effects of his designs on the men’s wear industry were radical and surprisingly persuasive. Within a couple of seasons, the sleekness of Dior Homme suits made everyone else’s designs look boxy and passé, and so designers everywhere started reducing their silhouettes.
Then a funny thing happened. The models were also downsized. Where the masculine ideal of as recently as 2000 was a buff 6-footer with six-pack abs, the man of the moment is an urchin, a wraith or an underfed runt.
============
So what happened? Homosexual fashion designers are trying to get their male models to look younger. Unlike female fashion models, many of whom approximate the looks of boys in their early adolescence, homosexual designers will find it very difficult to have male models generally resemble boys in their early adolescence, but they can certainly push the boundaries over time and have a large proportion of their male models look like boys in their late adolescence and some like boys in their mid-adolescence. And, homosexual designers like John Bartlett, quoted above, would pin the responsibility for the shift on anyone except themselves.
The age preferences of homosexual men vary, and many of them are interested in muscular adult men, but a gradual shift toward the use of thinner and thereby younger looking male models again shows that a large number of influential male homosexuals in the fashion industry have pederastic interests.
that and more is from a site that realizes that the problems in health and advertising for women are not because of heterosexual men of the famed patriarchy.
the women have their head in a fishbowl… they tell each other what men think… they tell us absurd things… and they dont look at the obvious… because its so much more fun to commiserate over the dead body of an enemy… even if he wasnt your enemy.
http://www.femininebeauty.info/fashion-model-basics
This section focuses on the physical features of high-fashion models. The main thing to note is the above average masculinization of high-fashion models, which is clarified by contrasting them with glamour models. Whereas one could critique this section by alleging deliberate sample bias to show above average masculinization among high-fashion models, one need only browse the top fashion models and sexy fashion models? sections, read about the requirements for becoming a supermodel, try to look at enough high-fashion models and browse the attractive women section to note the above average masculinization among high-fashion models. The subtlety of masculinity-femininity is described on the feminine vs. masculine page for those interested in articulating why high-fashion models have above average masculinization.
I do runway photography… (i think neo has checked my work out). i shoot for the top when i feel like shooting. i know them, they know me. Kai just invited me to something last week.
everyone acts like its so hot. i have had men ask me to take them as an assistant. and others think i was gay when i wasnt really interested in these women… no one could understand how a healthy heterosexual man hanging backstage with literally, what is considered, the most beautiful women in the world.
but they were all boys to me… the only ones that werent were the ones that also worked undewear… they were more like tom boy girls.
none were like the glamour and female models for mens mags.
follow the link and see what he points out
if you are as knowlegeable as i am about secondary sexual characteristics and how advertising plays with them, you will start to realize how things play.
but remember, its the women ASKING to be miserable, and capitailsm gives you waht you ask for, even if it isnt what you want. and in case you havent noticed, they have been whining that the men wont get into the misery pool with them any more
here is the list of the discussion.
[just remember they too have an agenda]
01. Female fashion models and adolescent boys
02. High-fashion models with fine facial features
03. High-fashion models with robust facial features
04. The cheekbones of high-fashion models
05. The jaws of high-fashion models
06. The forehead-nose region of high-fashion models
07. The physique of high-fashion models
08. The backside of high-fashion models
09. The chest of high-fashion models
10. The shoulders of high-fashion models
Your Monkey, your muffin your not hiding nothin
set to a beach boys /jan and dean song (cant remember)
www2.goyk.com/aw333sas0903/videos/cameltoe.wmv
[its not dirty, but not clean either….]
merci madamme, Voila la bearded clam.. 🙂
this one has better audio, and a bit funnier… there are a lot of them and i am sorry i didnt post the best one first. camel toe with bob & tom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWg9RU-MF-8
Mrs Whatsit:
There are lots of nice summer dresses this season in the stores I frequent in the midwest…but you are right, most are sleeveless. Many are directed to the younger generation. The only good news is that the stores are carrying summer-weight sweaters this year. I specifically hunted for such a sweater last year at the department stores (Macy’s et.al.) as well as stores such as Ann Taylor, Chico’s and Coldwater Creek and there were none to be had.
The alternative is to spend many hours per week working on your arms so that you can look like Michelle Obama. Personally, I will stick with a summer weight sweater.
JThoits: to look like Michelle Obama?
Are you kidding me?
The woman is ugly.
Has no style, no sense of self-alertness, no understanding how to mask failures of her figure (she has plenty. Start with bow legs and no calves to speak of)
And no amount of money and myriad of professional stylists (hired on your and mine buck) can fix that.
Gosh, just look at the black “flipper” dress she wore to infamous “dinner and a play” night! All that fringe made her look even fatter at the hips than she is.
In the post above “self-alertness” should read “self-awareness”. My apologies.
Tatyana, re: “The woman is ugly.”
Got that right! Even when she smiles it looks scary!
Mrs Whatsit,
Regarding “getting” the aforementioned chick flick movie:
I refuse to evolve…I refuse to evolve…I refuse to evolve….oink oink…lol.
Tatyana:
I was speaking about her upper arms…..
I completely agree with you on all the points you make regarding her other attributes. I heard a black newswoman on a local channel applauding her “junk in the trunk”. The MSM, women’s magazines and even TIME continue to speak of her “style and beauty” and I feel like one of the townspeople watching the Emperor parade by stark naked.
JThoits,
Thanks – now THAT’s a mental image I DIDN’T need!
“no more normal pants.”
Say, rather, no more normal nuttin’.
“Normal” is no longer a useful word.
JThoits,
I would rather you used Madonna for your upper arms example…as extreme as it is. But not the Fierce-Eyebrows-Witch-From-Midwest!
Sorry for the self-plug, just to avoid repetition: I’ve touched on the subject of emperor’s clothes here.
It’s the HFCS bulge
High Fructose Corn Syrup – No other explanation, and I’ve been watchin’ woman for decades!
I don’t care at all for Mrs. Obama’s style sense and I agree that she doesn’t make the best clothing choices to flatter her strong points and disguise her flaws. Her appearance doesn’t especially appeal to me, there is definitely something a little alarming in her smile, her face clearly wouldn’t be plastered all over magazine covers if not for the man she married, and the media’s fawning over her “beauty” seems transparently insincere.
But with all that said . . . I’m hesitating over the word “ugly.” It seems to me that how she looks (with the exception of those truly enviable upper arms) is more or less normal — perhaps what the British might call “plain” — but, ugly? Really? She doesn’t seem very different to me in appearance from an average mom I might encounter in the bleachers at a soccer game, or, for that matter, searching desperately in the racks at Ann Taylor for pants that fit over her hips and have a reasonably high waist. 😉 We’re so used to photoshopped photos of gleaming gorgeous model-thin 19-year-old women everywhere we look that maybe, pictures of an normal-looking woman with a bit of junk in the trunk don’t look normal to us any more — because our perspective on what’s normal has been distorted. I’m no fan of Mrs. Obama, but I’d rather not reach the point where ordinary-looking women who don’t meet fashion-model standards of beauty and aren’t stick-thin are, by default, considered ugly.
“When one has given up on fashion entirely, and the only function of clothes becomes to cover one’s nakedness with the least possible flair and expense and the maximum comfort, no doubt that’s the way to go.”
Uhhhh… you mean, clothes have a different function that that? I pretty much just wear a t-shirt and sweats or shorts. I must get out more often.
I agree, Mrs. Whatsit; Mrs. Obama just looks average to me. I have neighbors who are far better-looking, and neighbors who really are unequivocally unattractive (and about myself, Deponent Sayeth Not), and her appearance falls pretty much smack in the middle of my personal circle.
Certain cuts of Banana Republic’s pants fit me well, and though I initially cringed over the price, being bargain-happy by nature, they’ve lasted me almost four years now (even with an about 10-12-lb. weight gain/loss range over that time). And, let’s see, yes, Anne Taylor Loft has a cut that fits me – same deal on price. And I hit consignment stores a lot when I need clothes.
And finally, “What Not To Wear” makes the critical point again and again – WEAR CLOTHES THAT FIT! The most fashion-forward pants in my closet, if two sizes too small (or too large!), would look awful. But when I knuckle under and buy pants that actually fit the body I have now, rather than my long-lost high school body to which I will probably always unsuccessfully aspire, voila! No muffin top! (Or saggy behind. You get the idea.)
Oh yeah – I also came to terms last year sometime with the fact that I should always wear straight- or slightly flared-leg pants. With hips like mine, skinny-leg jeans or trousers are a BIG mistake, causing me to look like an Oompa Loompa, regardless of the fact that I’m “height-weight proportionate” or whatever the current phrase is.
Regarding Michelle Obama looking plain or normal, but not unattactive, I present evidence in the following link. This is how bad she looked BEFORE the makeover that simply brought her up to plain or normal looking:
http://blog.changeandexperience.com/2008/10/khalidi-tape-putting-bits-and-pieces.html
OOps, forgot to mention the photo in question is a little over halfway down the page.
Artfldgr,
I too am disgusted with the way the degenerate homos have used their influence in women’s fashion to destroy femininity, the natural female body, and their sense of worth. If I could wring the homos’ necks I would do it. I noticed this happening many years ago. Back in the Eighties I used to comment to my male friends about the models being used in fashion, that the women selected had physiques like a 12 year old male body. Very skinny with no hips. Most men are naturally not attracted to women who look like boys. Thank God for that!
Why is it that fashion design and the arts have been dominated by homos?
I tend to do most of my shopping in the boy’s section, although Costco (of all places) sometimes has great ladies’ jeans.
I’d add a wish for bras over C that don’t have underwires, but we may be asking too much.
Artfldgr,
One more comment about gay people (who I do not hate – and my wife and I just had a discussion about this) and I’m done. And it’s in connection with the news here in NH of the gay marriage bill. I’m not opposed to gays having legal unions. Got no problem with it. It’s somebody else’s private life and I’m not an intrusive person. But I have objections to gay “marriage.” And the reason I do is that once you’ve broken apart the understanding of marriage as between a man and a woman with the potential for a family, you are now on the slippery slope to further redefinitions of marriage that can go towards anything. And I do mean anything. The trend in society is towards greater tolerance of more and more degeneracy. Boiling the frog slowly, as they say.
I do not like the militancy of the gay community and the unseemly aspects of some of their lives. I just commented in my above post how you’ve made the same observations about how these people have done harm to women’s self-image. It is also an attack on their sexuality, believe it or not. If I were a woman, I would be mad as hell at these degenerates. With the marriage thing, we have another example of how “in yer face” these people are. It strains my general good natured tolerance and live-and-let-live stance. Plus, many of these people are also involved in other Hard Left stuff that I think does harm to the nation and to people over in other lands. Also, they DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO HELP THE PLIGHT OF GAY PEOPLE IN ISLAMIC SOCIETIES. They just don’t care. They’ll support the Ummah giving us the bitch slap on 9/11, but they could care less about the plight of women and gays in Islamic lands. Oh, how I detest these people!
I’ve actually mostly stopped buying women’s pants. When I want new jeans, the likeliest thing I’ll do is buy men’s Levi’s or another brand with a “relaxed” fit meant for heavier men- I’ve definitely got an hourglass figure, but the relaxed cut will fit my hips and thighs and stop at my real waist and not below my navel. They do tend to be a little loose in the waist if they fit my hips, but from a concealed carry perspective that’s a feature rather than a bug. As a bonus, men’s sizing is completely consistent, unlike women’s, so I’m not just stuck with one brand that I’ve figured out if I want to shop online.
Barring that, online retailers that use a system based around your measurements to find pants that will fit in a desired cut. Land’s End and L.L. Bean both do this.
I asked a rather hefty fellow i worked with once why he always wore supenders. His response was “Have you ever tried to put a belt on a funnel?”. Lol
LabRat,
My wife and I are big into clothes buying. We aren’t the type to “go clothes shopping” but we do want to make sure that what we wear fits well, is made well, and looks snappy. So, we do a fair amount of our clothes’ buying at LL Bean’s. We drive up to Freeport from NH, try on what we want, and then have it shipped to us – avoiding the Maine sales tax.
You will pay more for their stuff, but it’s made well, lasts, fits well, and the styles are classic, which we like.
What fun and interesting comments on a normally mundane, but nonetheless, irritating trend in women’s clothing…and I can’t stand those closures either, just gimme a button, please ! I am 55, pretty trim, but can’t wear those things, but must say the Gloria Vanderbilts, both jeans and slacks, suit very well. And Whoa !, Scottie, that’s a fasinating link to early picture of Michelle and the whole Khalidi business…so fitting for today’s antics of Dear Leader..
fredhjr,
Why is it that fashion design and the arts have been dominated by homos?
Because someplace in the past, women got it into their heads that a man who is like a woman and a man could bridge the gap and make things that women like that would also attract men.
It’s a pretty idiotic piece of logic but no more idiotic than the sympathetic magic of the I rub my skin with fruit that I like, and I get prettier.. (how come no one ever thought durian rubbed all over you would make you prettier? ïŠ ). This goes with the Hungarian woman that rubbed herself in the blood of virgins to stay young…
Again, women are MUCH more amenable to such frippery.. they go to psychics more, they can be convinced of things that are completely untrue (listening and trusting strangers more than their own), and the list goes on.
I just looked up and on tv I saw a soliloquy by Rossellini over why she wants her vagina.. and about penises…it’s a bizarre biology lesson (actually very interesting)… how many women want to be like Isabella Rossellini… (I just saw the ending and the whole piece just ends) The piece is entitled GREEN PORNO..
So don’t blame the homo’s… blame the idiots that with their head in a fishbowl listening to each other go la la la, and reasoning as to what the world is like but never actually trying to understand the real world.
Yeah that doesn’t sound nice… but then again.. if someone said the truth long ago, things wouldn’t have gotten so weird. (when people don’t get social feedback, they get strange…not cause they are bad.. or sick… but because there is no anchor)
oh… just to point out. i am not disgusted. i am old fashioned enough to know that what they do, dont bother me much. no reason to be disgusted when idiots give you a life advantage.
what does discuss me is all these confessionals and shows that are completely biased. like the show on broadway about a young gay boy dancer and getting all the awards. i said, want an award, come up with a gay love story that can be sucessfully thrust upon heterosexuals, and voila.
but this is because they have been promoted up the social scale to cause damage. i explained this in another post… but its not nice stuff. its really about how others can use them and their natures and cause destruction by it. they never believe it, or avoid it. but there are good reasons for it in history.
but if you also promote all deviancy, and normalize it, then you need not convince them to do things for your end, you only have to let their very ideas of how to make reality more amenable to them will do all the work.
they are fringe, and we all cant live as if the fringe is central (even if we would like to). because as that frince becomes central an even farther out fringe forms.
none of this says anything about them being bad persons. but if i promoted and didnt punish sociopathy and gave them more effective power by removing social restrictions what would happen? did i have to teach them anything? did i have to make them into bad people?
this is why this is not defensible in the way we are open and with our rules pushed to extremes so they are unworkable.
there was a time when a person who shouldnt win or be someplace would recuse themselves. but with the way things are now. they would fight to win to sit in the captains chair of a plane, and they would do so to the extreme and win over all the pilots. then forget they cant fly, and still try.
Ah hahahahahah very nice write! I love your intemperate self criticism. You are genuinely a femme fatale.
Might I suggest a “tramp stamp” you need only to invest one time.
If you can’t find suitably high hipped pantalones’ at least you can amuse the scopophiliacs who dig the “joe the plumber look” while it lasts.
For your readers who suffer from the “muffin” and share your struggles, try and get a couple of handles thrown in with the “t stamp” . Great cocktail conversation explaining how to use them.
New York & Co. have pants that fit. They have tall, average and petite lengths too.
Available anywhere. Men’s Levi’s. Needle. Thread. Scissors. Creative control.
…don’t thank me all at once.
In that woman’s photo here rear looks like two midgets wrestling under a tarp.
“…how come no one ever thought durian rubbed all over you would make you prettier?”
Artfldgr, you’ve traveled to Southeast Asia, so you already know the answer to this one. Of course, if you did rub yourself with durian, nobody would ever come close enough to know what you looked like:-)
I thought Tatyana’s advice about hunting in thrift stores was very good, actually. I have found good dress suits and blouses there. After asking around, I also found two retired women who do tailoring at home for a very small fee.
As for finding trousers now that fit: This too shall pass. Do you remember the horrible pleats from the early ’90s? For about a year, I couldn’t find anything that was flat-fronted. I have a classic figure, so if the trousers fit in the waist, my hips would pull those pleats open like an accordian. I ended up buying a pair too large and taking in the waist. Ugh!
Right now, I’m modifying blouses. Right now I’m wearing a cute dress with 1/4-length sleeves. I like it, but I always have to wear a camisole. For some reason, all the blouses now are cut too low for a big-breasted woman. Or as we say around here, “I’m not THAT kind of professional.”
I’m a single father of three kids, including a 9-year old daughter. She is blessed with a healthy, strong body which does not and will not (if I have any say so, which I do) squeeze into any of the trampy little pants which are ubiquitous in the “girl” clothing departments today. We buy boys’ cargo pants for her, which are durable and fit perfectly.
OK, I’m 5’2″, 100 lbs, but have a waist & hips – here are a couple of options that work for me:
Old Navy – Women’s Classic Rise Boot Cut jeans (fit at waist – really slightly below)
Kohl’s – Gloria Vanderbilt Amanda Stretch jeans (slightly below waist)
I ended up sewing a couple of darts into the waist in the back to avoid gapping, and they fit fine now and avoid the problems with low/mid rise.
I always get the regular length, since petite is too short, especially after a few washings.
The misogynist in me says you should be wearing dresses and heals that will solve your problem.
My daughter complained about low-rise parts, claiming to be a “fashion victim.” I told her she was a fashion accomplice.
Lands End and L.L.Bean have “classic” (not trendy) clothes for women.
And, if all else fails–make your own clothes. Then you know they’re custom-made and tailored just for you.
Sorry but this is an intervention for you: that woman in the muffin top photo is fat. Yes, fat.
I don’t know when “fat” became “not fat”, but I am here to correct it. When you have body fat flapping over clothing, you are fat.
Spartee: You are simply wrong. Unless, of course, you define “fat” as anything other than model- or rail-thin with no flesh whatsoever—which would put 99.99% of women in the “fat” category.
Women are meant to have curves and flesh. The woman in the photo has a very slim and well-defined waist and nicely curvy hips. I can almost guarantee that I could post a photo of the same woman (I don’t know who she is, so I can’t do it) in pants that come up much higher and do not cruelly cut into the middle part of her hip (and therefore do not create the extra rolls you see here), and she would look very nice and classically curvy (think Sophia Loren or any other beautifully curvy but not-fat star of the 50s).
Oh, and when you have body fat flapping over clothing, you often merely have clothing that doesn’t fit right or isn’t cut right for your body, and a body that has not been artificially reduced by starvation or ten-hour-a-day workouts to a ridiculous non-womanly “ideal” of eight per cent body fat.
waltj, you’ve traveled to Southeast Asia, so you already know the answer to this one. Of course, if you did rub yourself with durian, nobody would ever come close enough to know what you looked like:-)
so you understand my point.
the guy on cable that eats anything could not eat durian!!! and he tried TWICE!!! and i gained a lot more respect for him because he didnt refilm his attempt, or just avoid it.
the first time. into his mouth, an woosh out of his mouth. then he had a show in ny, and he tried again in china town (or flushing?), and whoosh out and he gave up..
this is a man that eats beatles, fetal chickens, and some fierce stuff.
my wife like durian and avocado.
i have almost mastered it. though i never had that reaction (and i cant eat the crap he does!!!)
i am acquiring the taste. so each time she has it i take a few bites… in a couple of years it will be a favorite food.
but sympathetic magic of this and women may even be a pun. they wear it in hopes that their search for beauty is fruitful. 🙂
actually its feeling good bathing in primitive money!!! like in the silent movie greed.
Missjean, the thfirst store thing is going going going… a new law by obama and company has creamed them and its puttig them all out of business.
[and may make a legal freefor all on ebay]
Wilson,
your going to have to check her bags before she leaves and make sure that her freinds dont keep a stash she changes into for school and changes out of coming home. not to mention skirt rolling. .. hey! i said not to mention it 🙂
Neo, I agree. That woman is not fat. She is normal. All she needs is pants that fit. The fact that she is a normal weight rather than fashion-model-emaciated does not mean she is fat. (Insert here what I said above about labeling normal-looking women as ugly. Normal-weight women are not fat.)
Art, please say more about the new law and thrift shops. I didn’t know about this. The Salvation Army thrift store in my town announced earlier this week that it’s closing. Maybe that’s why.
Skirt-rolling! I used to be an expert. My friends and I would get called down to the principal because our mini-skirts were too short (yes I know I’m dating myself, but oh well.) By the time we got to his office they would be regulation length. And as soon as we were out of his sight (and our mothers) those skirts were short again!
Mrs. Whatsit: being ugly and being fat are not mutually exclusive, but neither is conditional for another.
In case of MO she’s not fat. But she’s ugly all the same.
There is relatively low percentage of population (male or female) who could be considered a physical beauty; if that was not so, the distinction would not be necessary. So, more often than not, a woman has flaws. The difference between an inexperienced teenager and a mature woman is that the latter learned to evaluate herself and compensate for her flaws – in her choice of clothes, shoes, cosmetics or posture. She sees in her mind’s eye the image she wants to project – and follows that image in her choice of “packaging”. Like Jamie, up there in the thread. That is what’s “normal”.
I think that old saw “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” comes into play here, only I’d substitute ugliness for beauty. Whether somebody is ugly or beautiful is ultimately a subjective determination (except probably at the far ends of the continuum — I don’t imagine anybody’s going to argue very sincerely that Grace Kelly, for instance, was ugly.) There’s not much purpose in arguing about our different perceptions on this — maybe the people I normally associate with are uglier than the people you do, and that’s why Mrs. O. looks uglier to you than she does to me! 😉
On your other point, I didn’t mean to suggest that fatness and ugliness were mutually dependent. Of course it’s possible to be both thin and ugly, or both fat and beautiful, for that matter. I just meant that what I said in my rant above about media distortions affecting our perceptions as to what’s normal in a woman’s appearance applies in the same way to our perceptions about what’s normal for a woman’s weight.
Well, I heard that there actually are studies on the subject of beauty – or perception of beauty, and that despite the quickly-changing fads and fashions of the moment there are some characteristics that seem to be permanent throughout centuries – otherwise the Renaissance portraits or antique statues were not having the effect on people they have now.
I vaguely remember reading that general symmetry of a face was a big contribution to perception of beauty. And that it works on almost subconscious level; sometimes we can’t explain why someone appears to have an unpleasant facial features – until we are shown (by consequently covering left/right side of their photo en face). I dimly recall, btw, that Grace Kelly was presented as an example of almost perfect facial symmetry.
Of course, that standards of normality differ between real population and idealized view of the media. I agree that when 70+ percent of healthy women are in the range of 130-160 lb and 5’2″-5’8″ height range (approximately; I don’t have a statistical link to prove it) – that should be taken as a norm, rather than abnormality.
Still, within the norm there is a huge variation – be it in weight, height, proportion, types of figure, hair- , skin- and eye-color – that affects our appearance. Some discrepancies are merely marks of individuality (“keepers”), some are crying for correction. Correcting one’s small imperfections with clothes is a less expensive and attractively non-permanent method. So that muffin-top model in the Neo’s post could have easily avoided the rather unappetizing look with her fitting pants selection.
Art, please say more about the new law and thrift shops. I didn’t know about this. The Salvation Army thrift store in my town announced earlier this week that it’s closing. Maybe that’s why.
CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act)
since they cant certify the old products that were made before this are safe. they have traces of things in them that violate this. and small toy makers and the kind that make wooden toys and such they are no longer selling in the US. there was a video about some ny left liberal who opened a boutique and now cant sell the hand made items that were made locally. by the time they fix it if they fix it the damage will be done.
Scrap The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/16/cpsia-safety-toys-oped-cx_wo_0116olson.html
Hailed almost universally on its passage last year–it passed the Senate 89 to three and the House by 424 to one, with Ron Paul the lone dissenter–CPSIA is now shaping up as a calamity for businesses and an epic failure of regulation, threatening to wipe out tens of thousands of small makers of children’s items from coast to coast, and taking a particular toll on the handcrafted and creative, the small-production-run and sideline at-home business, not to mention struggling retailers.
thrifts do a lot of business in second hand toys and cloths for kids. so without that, how many people want 8 track players?
in a short time only large entities will make childrens toys, and the state will tell them what they can be
Barbed with penalties that include felony prison time and fines of $100,000, the law goes into effect in stages; one key deadline is Feb. 10, when it becomes unlawful to ship goods for sale that have not been tested. Eventually, new kids’ goods will all have to be subjected to more stringent “third-party” testing, and it will be unlawful to give away untested inventory even for free.
The first thing to note is that we’re not just talking about toys here. With few exceptions, the law covers all products intended primarily for children under 12. That includes clothing, fabric and textile goods of all kinds: hats, shoes, diapers, hair bands, sports pennants, Scouting patches, local school-logo gear and so on.
And paper goods: books, flash cards, board games, baseball cards, kits for home schoolers, party supplies and the like. And sporting equipment, outdoor gear, bikes, backpacks and telescopes. And furnishings for kids’ rooms. And videogame cartridges and audio books. And specialized assistive and therapeutic gear used by disabled and autistic kids
makers of these goods can’t rely only on materials known to be unproblematic (natural dyed yarn, local wood) or that come from reputable local suppliers, or even ones that are certified organic.
Instead they must put a sample item from each lot of goods through testing after complete assembly, and the testing must be applied to each component. For a given hand-knitted sweater, for example, one might have to pay not just, say, $150 for the first test, but added-on charges for each component beyond the first: a button or snap, yarn of a second color, a care label, maybe a ribbon or stitching–with each color of stitching thread having to be tested separately.
Suddenly the bill is more like $1,000–and that’s just to test the one style and size. The same sweater in a larger size, or with a different button or clasp, would need a new round of tests–not just on the button or clasp, but on the whole garment. The maker of a kids’ telescope (with no suspected problems) was quoted a $24,000 testing estimate, on a product with only $32,000 in annual sales.
Could it get worse? Yes, it could. Contrary to some reports, thrift and secondhand stores are not exempt from the law. Although (unlike creators of new goods) they aren’t obliged to test the items they stock, they are exposed to liability and fines if any goods on their shelves (or a component button, bolt, binding, etc.) are found to test above the (very low) thresholds being phased in.
“The reality is that all this stuff will be dumped in the landfill,” predicted Adele Meyer, executive director of the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops. Among the biggest losers if that happens: poorer parents who might start having to buy kids’ winter coats new at $30 rather than used at $5 or $10.
Since the law does not exempt books, children’s’ sections at libraries and bookstores will, at minimum, face price hikes on newly acquired titles and, at worse, may have to rethink older holdings.
After all, no one has the slightest idea how many future violations lie hidden in the stacks and few want to play a guessing game about how seriously officialdom will view illegality. “Either they take all the children’s books off the shelves,” Associate Executive Director Emily Sheketoff of the American Library Association told the Boston Phoenix, “or they ban children from the library.”
Antique dolls? Old model-car collections? Musical instruments? Vintage bicycles? Some will go underground in private collectors’ clubs, others will be tossed on the bonfires of the new Cultural Revolution.
A traditional attraction on the heritage festival circuit is the kids’ dance or performance troupe in ethnic, pioneer or frontier garb, often handcrafted with the sort of ornate detail (beads, pendants, lace inserts, etc.) that will not be practical to test.
The same goes for Native American kids’ cherished moccasins, buckskins and powwow gear. Making matters worse, many foreign producers of craft and small-batch toys and clothes, chary of liability under the law, are planning to exit the American market entirely, a step already taken by three German toymakers.
what a wonderful sneaky way to wipe out all the old culture…
instead of book burnings and such things we get child safety.
Try the stretch jeans from WalMart. I’m 61 and refuse to wear hip hugging pants. I got one pair Kymaro jeans advertised on TV and was set to order two more pair until I was going to be charged $25 shipping. So, I went to WalMart and for $18 bought White Stag stretch jeans. I liked them so much went back and bought two more pair. They fit well, come up to my waist, and are comfortable.
Art, thanks for confirming what I have been thinking lately, as a connoisseur of woman’s asses I have thought the new pants must have been designed by gay guys, not the low riders but just the general cut, it seems to pinch it up and make it look extremely unattractive….cant figure out why that is the style, guess it a sign I’m getting old…
by getting girls to dress like men you get women to focus on women sexually.
kind of like extending the tail of a stickleback…
Artfldgr, thanks for the information. I had heard about the book-removal, since my county’s library has a large collection of classic children’s books from the Golden Age (’20s-50s). The justification appears to be that older books contain lead and other metals in the illustrations on the cover – and children might lick or eat the books, evidentally.
I didn’t realize that everything has to be tested. Ridiculous!
This thread has more cultural significance than one might imagine, because it speaks to expectations about women and what matters to them. We have seen for some time mothers of teenaged daughters who seem to want to dress like teenagers themselves. In a lot of cases, the phrase “mutton dressed as lamb” comes to mind. So there is some cultural confusion here: are adult women to act like teenagers? Are teenagers to act like adults? Is being “hot” THE key to status and mobility for women? (Mrs. Oblio says nothing, but I see a word bubble forming over her head containing the comment “Duh!”)
For my part, I have decided, to hell with fashion, and even to hell with “business casual.” My new strategy is to buy good, classic clothes that fit well, and dress to suit myself. Everyone, including Mrs. Oblio, seems satisfied with the result.
“although she’s hardly model-thin, she most definitely is not fat”
That smacks of utter denial. The same that got her into those pants to begin with.
Check her BMI and look into all the health issues that come with that and get back to me.
Levis have a jean for every figure. The trouble is finding a
store that sells them. I know that we need to find clothes that
fit, buy them now and stay this size because in a year or so we
will no longer be able to afford them. I love antique stores and
resale shops of all kinds. It makes me sick to see our nanny
society making us so safe that we have nothing old left. They
are already talking about doing away with used cars, even!
The lady in the picture — IS fat. Wh…
BIM is a crock.
utterly
bunk
Throughout the United States becoming a fat country is a growing concern. The Body Mass Index and other quick assessments of weight are receiving more attention than ever.
The Body Mass Index, or BMI, is a common tool used for calculating and indicating weight status. The BMI can supposedly designate whether someone is underweight, normal, overweight or obese.
The BMI was created by a 19th century statistician based on the observation that the average person often has a weight proportional to the square of their height. Before 1998, there was a separate BMI table for males and females.
In 1998, the National Institutes of Health, U.S. obesity experts, issued new guidelines for evaluation of health risks from obesity. The tables were combined into one for both genders. The new BMI table became a flawed system.
The BMI table considers Keanu Reeves, Will Smith and even Brad Pitt overweight. It calculated Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger to be obese. To the general public, this is incorrect because these celebrities are divine to us. This is a flaw due in part to misconceptions about the BMI system.
http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_05_09.html
I really dislike the BMI.
For those saying the woman in the picture is fat-
Go put in a pair of pants that barely fits your hip bones, if you lay down to get them zipped. Then cinch it down just above the hip bones with a belt to keep the button shut, since when you stand up the mushy bits of female anatomy don’t fit as well.
Cover with a skin-tight shirt, and you end up looking like the woman up top.
Forget BMI. It IS known that abdominal fat is a health risk. No she’s not morbidly obese. Just fat. Denial…
Rich, give it up, and go find yourself a model-thin woman to make you feel good.
However, since you seem quite obsessed with this issue, I’d like to point out that you can’t even see the abdomen of the woman in the photo The best measure of abdominal fat in women is the waist measurement, and from the evidence in the photo she seems to have a rather small waist.
But it’s awfully nice of you to show such concern for her health.
Hmm. Yes. Upon reconsideration, the waist is just fine here. Oh my..the inability to see what is before your eyes. Denial.
If you haven’t noticed, abdominal fat tends to display itself differently in men vs women. Yes..a huge (semantic) difference between waist and abdomen.
I AM concerned about her health..perhaps obsessed even. At least as it pertains to the larger trend.
The concurrent rise in weight, diabetes and cancer is a huge drain on society. And a damn, at least partially avoidable shame.
Yacking about problems with jean choices is a lame avoidance of a near epidemic overweight-ness. Tell her to skip the muffin, not embrace it.
Or..Keep making excuses, promoting acceptance of unhealthy body standards, avoiding the obvious and asking medicine to fix the ensuing problems. Apparently, you still have a bit of victim mentality to overcome. Those damn unattainable body images..sheesh.
Rich, Your in-depth analysis and insensitivity about “overweight-ness” amply shows that you are carrying a bit of excess fat-ness yourself, right between your ears. By the way, it doesn’t show until you open your mouth or type your thoughts.
Wow. That was an impressive rebuttal. Much akin to name calling. i.e. I know you are but what am I? “Anonymess” indeed.
artfl, my cynicism continues to grow exponentially. My take on many of these law changes by congress – product and worker”safety”, etc. – concern the size of the manufacturer. A small organization of a couple hundred employees or less, cannot survive “unionization”. Nor are they meant too. There is simply not enough cash flow (forget profit, that’s a thing of the past) for a small company to survive. All company employees will be reduced to union labor, middle and upper management will be government. Instead of unions “helping” people do better in life, they will control those very same individuals, limiting them, and the lives they lead. The best get no better pay than the worst, trying to be more than one already is will be be fruitless, and most likely make one end up in trouble. Actually, there will be no individuals. Just the collective.
The majority of employers in this country are small businesses. I can’t remember where I read it, but the government considers small business to be something like 2,000 employees, or less. I’ve never worked in a company with anywhere near 2,000 employees. Private enterprise, small business, is a thorn in the side of where our country is being taken.
Small business, too, must be eliminated over time.
Rich-
your entire argument consists of saying “she’s fat” without facts, while ignoring the rational responses of everyone else; how else would someone refute such in-depth commentary, when you show zero ability to argue rationally?
Rich: I wonder if you even bothered to follow the link I kindly offered you in my most recent comment. I’ll try again: here is the link. It goes into the entire issue of how abdominal fat seems to affect women’s health, and how best to measure it in women, which they conclude is best done by taking the waist measurement.
Rich says, “Wow. That was an impressive rebuttal. Much akin to name calling. i.e. I know you are but what am I? “Anonymess” indeed.
Rich: What am I supposed to rebutt? That you’re a fat-ist idiot with a personal agenda who yammers about fats without facts? I just can’t do it. There’s too much evidence to the contrary. And since you’ve chosen to put more of your thoughts and words on display here, i.e., “Wow…,” your copious brain fat is, of course, showing again. You obviously aren’t self-conscious about it. If I were you, I’d go on a strict diet, avoiding as many words as possible.
Low rise jeans look good on female body builders – in fact fbb’s look good in almost anything
Red-
o.0
YMMV.
Healthy type body builders, I can see the attraction– those whose bodies have shut down female functions (being delicate here) due to lack of body fat, not so much.
You said “she most definitely is not fat”
I disagree – she is fat.
The tight clothes just make it worse.
She needs to eat less and exercise more.
-Dave
Just imagine if that poor misguided lady in the photograph ever stumbles over this post and comment thread! She’ll never go out in public again.
This whole she-is-too she-is-not discussion just confirms the points made upthread by Tatyana, Jamie, and others about the importance of chosing clothes that fit and flatter. If Ms. Muffin Top had chosen jeans that permitted her hips to make a smooth, shapely curve below that relatively narrow waist, she would not look “fat” to any rational observer outside the fashion-photography industry. She’d change that soft flesh from a liability to an asset and I’ll bet most (male at least) observers would admire her curves rather than blaming her for having them.
Further, the stubborn insistence of several commenters that poor Ms. Muffin Top is “fat” because she has a little normal female flesh softening her hipbones, below a well-defined waist and above what look like slim thighs, also goes to prove just how hypercritical and detached from reality many people have become about women’s bodies. Cue speech here about the prevalence of eating disorders in adolescent women who perceive that the replacement of their bony little-girl bodies with the normal curves of a woman makes them so repulsive that they can atone only by starving themselves literally to death.
And as for Rich, who’s an expert in female fatness even though he knows so little about female anatomy that he can’t tell the difference between a woman’s hips and her abdomen, pay special attention to the part in the article Neo linked for you that discusses waist-to-hip ratio. It looks to me as if Ms. Muffin Top may very well have the anatomy classified as “pear-shaped” which, theoretically at least, gives her a significant health advantage.
Mrs Whatsit: I used to wonder that very thing about the Glamour “don’ts.” Remember those photos snapped by the roving street photographers of anonymous women who had committed various unpardonable fashion sins? Imagine the ignominy of finding oneself immortalized as such!
What this blog needs is a “Women of Neocon” post. Pictures of hips and waists. Clothed is fine. Maybe even an online poll. Is this Neoconista fat? Vote Now!
*snort* FMT-
I’m pregnant and I already know I’m too heavy. I don’t need to hand trolls bait to find *that* out. I’ve lost twenty pounds in the past four months to almost no visual effect due to my build.
Once it won’t put my kid at risk, I’ll work on losing even more weight.
Really isn’t relevant, though.
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While I agree that One must choose for themselves what they must wear. I disagree that low rise pants are terrible. I myself am a mature woman, who enjoys wearing low-rise pants. I find pants that come too high uncomfortable and binding and the most unflattering. I have hips and a belly and find that wearing them correctly does not produce a (as you informatively and politically correctly stated) a butt crack. Since we speak frankly, lets be frank.
I had seen that on your profile you have some background in psychology. Well, from your blog, it seems that you are having trouble with the realization that you are aging.
I agree that The fashion industry should not dictate to how we perceive our bodies and wether or not we are over weight or other wise obese. Speaking of which you cannot forget that at the moment there is an epidemic of obesity in our country and it should do good to do the research of what the true definition of ‘over weight ‘ is.
True a healthy weight woman has a certain amount of body fat that is normal. however, as you had stated ” Now, a muffin top of the old-fashioned variety is ordinarily a very pleasant thing” is truly old FASHIONED. I mean this to the true account of the words. Being old fashion and not what is humanly healthy. Back in those times it was considered attractive for a woman ( or a man) to have a little extra, or the preverbal love-handles. This, in that time as it were until the turn of the century of about 1910, was considered beautiful because of it’s symbol of status or wealth . As well as the untanned skin was a symbol of the working class versus the upper class. If in fact you had truly done your research as you put it you would know this.
The common trend these days in fashion is to wear your pants about 2-3 sizes too small for your build. A trend I must say I will be happy to see fade out with the days of flowing tops that look like you stole your 3 year old little sister’s sunday school dress. If a pair of low rise pants are worn with the appropriate cut for the legs versus figure as well as inseam them they are most flattering on women of all ages. ( with of course the appropriate top). If one wears these pants at the correct size then the hips waist and stomach are glorified not horrified.
As for your shopping. look into stores that are of the genre to your age bracket and not in the petite section, which was created for the ‘juniors’ in the transition period to ‘women’s ‘ sizes.
Dana: Nope, not even remotely correct. Except for the years when I was dancing and had to eat very sparingly to keep myself much thinner than is natural for my particular body type, I actually haven’t changed all that much over the years, figure-wise. I remember when low-rise pants were popular when I was a teenager (not as low-rise as now, but fairly low) and they were called “hip huggers.” They were every bit as unflattering to me then.
I think it’s best to wear the fashion that is most flattering, and for all but the thinnest of women (with the slimmest of hips and the flattest of stomachs) that does not happen to be low-rise pants (I’m not talking about the ones that are ever-so-slightly below the waist; slightly-low-rise are okay).
Plus, you are incorrect about the fit, for women with hips. If a woman with substantial hips wears very low-rise pants that are big enough that they don’t bind her hips and cause the extra bulge of a muffin top, then they will fall down unless she wears a belt or suspenders. That’s because the low area of her hips will be the biggest part of her.
As for old-fashioned love of the fuller-figured woman, that preference went along with clothing that actually flattered that type of figure. The emphasis was on the decolletage and the waist. and sometimes the butt (as, for example, in a bustle, which artificially exaggerated the size of the butt in order to make hips and stomach and waist look even smaller in comparison).
Finally, you are also incorrect about petites. Actually, you could not be more wrong. Junior sizes are most definitely not petites; I never shop in the junior section. The petite section is just the opposite—it caters to the elderly, something that makes it hard for me to shop there also, since although I don’t like ultra-low-rise pants I’m also not ready for the elasticized waists and the like. Here’s a post I wrote a while back on petite clothing.
Just to let you know, although I have no idea if they have this in the petite section, as I’ve never stepped into one, but there is a cut of pants with something called a “modern fit which fits just below the belly button. I find them to be just about perfect for correcting the muffin top situation.
I don’t get this whole ‘muffin top’ buisness. I’m 5’7.5 tall and a size 6…but I’m lean, in good shape and good health. But even before then, when I was at my largest…a size 12, I wore low rise jeans and never got this problem. Women just need to learn what suits their body shape and not to try fit in jeans that fit their butt and nearly sever their hips…its pretty simple.
Even at a size 0 (which I was not too long back) my hips are wide. I’m half English, half Latino…and while my waist was 24 inchs, my hips and bus were both 35…so I wore clothes which fit me and celebratedm y curves etc, Fashion only looks good if you can pull it off, and what looks ugly on the hanger can look amazing on the model…just look in the mirror before you walk out the door in the morning, ladies.
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