Glamour and the Photo of the Real Girl
When you think of fashion magazines, it usually brings to mind images of models that are, well, really skinny. So, when Glamour ran a 3-inch image of a woman whose body doesn't come close to fitting the high-fashion archetype, they were hit with a storm of positive feedback. The subject is Lizzi Miller, a 20 year-old plus-sized model from New York. While there has obviously been a little retouching done (this is a fashion magazine after all), the image shows a certain realism uncharacteristic of the genre.
With all of that positive feedback coming in, we can't help but think we will start seeing more images like this in the pages of fashion mags. We couldn't be happier about it.
About Time!
Posted by: Tony Vargas | September 04, 2009 at 11:07 AM
i am all for presenting real average men/women in fashion magazines but i am sorry..that gut looks disgusting .i like curvy shapes in women even beyond voluptous but being a 20 something with such a misshapen abdomen is just plain laziness .not to mention as potentially hazardous to health as being super skinny
excellent idea ..bad implementation
Posted by: jim | September 04, 2009 at 07:09 PM
Wow... OUTSTANDING!!! I love the look of real women and real people in general in ads. It's about time. Not only is it more attractive to the eye but it also shows that there are other real people other than the adonis or "super" model types. Bravo to the Hanes company and Dove Soap for having the guts to break away from the pack first on this one an start marketing to the average person. If you haven't looked... go check out torrid.com and look at the models there. Not "super" model thin, not morbidly obese, but your average woman. Not to mention drop dead gorgous in my book.
Posted by: Mickey Burrow | September 04, 2009 at 10:06 PM
This young girl is Beautiful.
Wouldn't all guys wish they had a girlfriend or wife this
nice and the ladies, how many can or do look this
Beautiful ??
Posted by: charles sroka | September 04, 2009 at 10:20 PM
Tony, you have NO idea what you're talking about. That portion of the abdomen is a common "trouble-spot" for women, and many of them will always have a bit of a "pooch" there no matter how hard they work out. You're not going to get much action between the sheets if a little thing like that turns you off.
Posted by: Ardath | September 05, 2009 at 08:59 AM
I LOVED this photo. This girl looks like maybe she had a child, and I don't care how hard you exercise, you cannot get rid of a stretched out gut unless you have surgery. So get off her ass about being lazy. It's about you being ignorant about body damage. This is reality, this is what happens to your body in real life.....I LOVE this and hope to see more of the same. I am SICK of photo where the women are perfect, how many are there of those in the REAL world?
Kudos for having the BALLS to show her flaws!!!
Posted by: Jonnie | September 05, 2009 at 11:21 AM
I've always been a fan of plus-size models! There's a great site with many images of plus-size models here:
http://www.judgmentofparis.com/
They're all gorgeous.
Posted by: Lois | September 06, 2009 at 12:50 PM
Really really love the concept and having the strength to put up a plus-sized model on the mag. May this be the first of a good step in the right direction.
Posted by: Singapore Corporate Photographers | September 07, 2009 at 04:22 AM
The only thing I see that is truly disgusting is Tony Vargas' ignorant commentary. Didn't he notice that the beautiful model is seated and leaning forward? Even if she wasn't, the small fold is not the least bit unappealing. Automatically labeling her "lazy" is a fair indication that he is probably one of the health and fitness "elite" who think they are morally superior to those who don't work as hard as he does to meet his standards as. "Hazardous to her health"? Ridiculous.
Posted by: rcpaulsen | September 07, 2009 at 07:20 AM
Yuck! I'm 52 years old - and I think she looks gross. I would probably not have such a strong opionion if I saw her under different circumstances, but when your pictture appears in a magazine called "Glamout", you invite critical review. My review: yuck! Unglamerous women in a magazine called "Glamout".....would somebody please tell me the point?
Posted by: Brian | September 07, 2009 at 11:40 AM
First of all - Plus Size? She looks about a size 10 or 12. What is wrong with our defenition of Plus Size??
Ok, to the MEN who think this is not beautiful. Guess your wives had never had children. Oh, I am sorry. You probably don't have wives, because if you ever made those comments to her you would be sleeping on the sofa permanently! I can tell you, as a woman who had two children, even at 125 pounds, I had that damn pouch! No amount of exercise will make it go away. Not all of us are so blessed as to have a baby without stretch marks and without getting that. Ugh! I doubt anyone likes it, but it is a side affect of having children. We just learn to live with it. I was thrilled to see a picture of a 'real' girl for a change! I think they selected the perfect model. She is beautiful and NOT perfect. Great job!
Posted by: julie | September 08, 2009 at 05:50 PM
KUDOS TO THE PUBLISHER AND THE MODEL
FINALLY SHOWING A NATURAL UNTOUCHED WOMAN,
ADVERTISE WITH WIVES AND MOTHERS BUT WITHOUT RETOUCHING !!
Ok I am bloke .. and I do appreciate that some body types appeal to different target markets for advertising specific ranges to the consumer and alike, but the thing that 99.99% of the population self assessing their worthiness and resulting in asteem issues is the reality that no model is the "perfectly formed" creatures they appear to be ( I know because I spend a good portion of my day attending to the preceived imperfections post shooting) ... don't take my word for it ..ask the models ... they will soon tell you themselves what they don't see as that glamorous or perfect about their own being.
Ok I will get off the soapbox now ... scared of heights ...
Posted by: Steve | September 08, 2009 at 08:31 PM
"Real woman"??!! Does that mean that you think the beautiful women are clay models or animated computer forms?? No - they are beautiful women.....and there are very few of them - that's why they are called "exceptional"!! "Real woman" is just another term for "average woman". Yes, "average women" make up the huge majority of the population....and there's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with finding average looking women attractive. But come on all you average looking women out there! Quit being jelous, pull your claws back in, and stop bad-mouthing the glamerous women that you are not! Have you ever heard one of them bad mouth you? Bottom line: no matter how much you contort your logic that this average woman somehow represents what is glamerous, or celebrate the fact that an average woman has found her way to a fashion magazin, your thought process boils down to one thing - jelousy. Think I'm wrong? Just watch the flood of spite, anger and cat-hissing that greets this e-mail!
Posted by: Jason | September 09, 2009 at 10:09 AM
Very Rubenesque! I like.
Posted by: Huggs | September 09, 2009 at 04:19 PM
I love these photos and the real image they are leaving the world with. Natural is beautiful
Posted by: gsnap3030 | September 13, 2009 at 02:46 AM
Love it. Some people work out their abs, others work out their brains, others work 9-5 jobs, others spend their days online, some spend their days gardening, some spend their days cooking or listening to music or dreaming. There is no right way. The beauty here is that it's all beautiful. The skinny one is beautiful, the voluptuous one is beautiful, the muscular one is beautiful, the smart one is beautiful, the not so smart but very friendly one is beautiful. I think the point is that when our idea of beauty is limited to one norm, we don't/can't see the beauty that surrounds us.
Posted by: angela | September 30, 2009 at 02:15 PM
There is a common first year psychology experiment where the subject rests one hand in hot water and the other in cold. The subject then puts both hands into a bucket of tepid water. To the hand coming from the hot water, the tepid water feels cold. To the hand coming from the cold water, the tepid water feels hot.
By saturating ourselves with idealized retouched beauty, we lose the ability to appreciate the ordinary beauty of the human form. These effects are also measurable. In an experiment where teenage girls rated their self esteem after browsing a beauty magazine, they rated themselves lower than girls who had just browsed a neutral stimulus. The sicknesses of unnecessary cosmetic surgery and rampant consumption of beauty products attests to these effects.
It is not "gross" that a woman's belly rolls when she leans forward. It is "gross" that society expects that roll not to be there, and it is "gross" that people feel entitled to criticize that roll.
Posted by: Dr. Barry | October 17, 2009 at 12:09 PM
Let's be honest, the picture is what it is:- a picture of a reasonably pretty girl, who is a little more rounded than some models. My problem is not so much the girl but the photography. Any decent photographer would not have posed her like that, unless he was doing it to highlight the problem areas. Why retouch at all, does that not defeat the object of the exercise? It has obviously been done to cause controversy.
I'm all for the larger women but let's get real. Would a short, fat, hairy, guy, get to play James Bond? I don't think so.
There is nothing wrong with larger women, just photograph them properly and bring out there qualities. Will this article change anything long term ? Probably not. I still feel majority of female models will always be tall, slim and gorgeous. That's just life.
Posted by: Studio Background | November 04, 2009 at 04:28 PM