Read Online Fashioning Fat: Inside Plus-Size Modeling by Amanda M. Czerniawski - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Amanda M. Czerniawski
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a fat body and, like Becky, never imagined that they could work successfully as models due to their size. They honestly believed that their bodies needed to be hidden and covered up. The overall level of body loathing and insecurity present in these women before they entered modeling highlights the effects of stigmatization on fat women. Their fat was their scarlet letter. As with Mary who spent years hating her body, these women initially saw only their unwanted, undesirable fat. Yet, once they discovered plus-size modeling and this built-in community to which they could belong, they, like Clarissa, began to see their bodies in a different light and changed their course of action.
After Dana, a size sixteen runway and showroom model, gave birth to her son, she questioned whether she could continue modeling after the pregnancy; however, her fellow model friends encouraged her to carry on:
My friend told me, “What’s your problem? Put on a great bra and Spanx and you’re ready to go.” She’s right . . . When I came back [after the pregnancy], it was like a family reunion. Everyone wanted to see pictures of my son. Everyone has been so supportive. I love these girls.
It took the support of other similarly motivated and bodied women for Dana to be at ease with her changed body. When all else failed, she was able to find relief in shapewear.
For these women, a reactionary process—of experiencing shame to attempting to cover up their bodies to final acceptance—that involved the actions of an outside force, such as the boutique owner, another plus-size model, or “friending” someone on Facebook, shifted their understanding of fat and beauty. Like Stephanie and the makeup artist or Joelle and her plus-size model friend, these women responded to positive encouragement from the authoritative voice of a fashion insider. Without this encouragement, most of these women would never have imagined modeling as a career option. Thankful to the usher who convinced her that she could be a plus-size model, Janice acknowledged, “It’s nice to be paid for having this body of curves. Too many girls have eating disorders. I want to be another type of example.” These models began as women who entered the field of modeling as part of a larger reactionary process that hinged on an active break with conventional interpretations of the social identity of a fat woman.
Black and Latina plus-size models who differed from the normative white body in fashion faced additional pressures to be role models in their ethnic communities, whose embrace of larger bodies may be waning. Size sixteen/eighteen model Yvonne, who was black, saw young black women trying to emulate the body types of high-fashion models through dieting:
They want to look like [straight-size] models but they’re genetic anomalies. I don’t want them [the young girls] to blindly change their bodies to match a picture in a magazine and suffer the consequences.
This shift in bodily ideals that Yvonne witnessed matches what anthropologist Anne E. Becker found in the island nation of Fiji, which traditionally idealized a large, robust body. In her book,
Body, Self, and Society: The View from Fiji
, Becker noticed a shift in bodily ideals with the introduction of western television. In a culture centered on food, within a few years after exposure to western images of beauty, young girls began, for the first time, to think of themselves as fat and purged toachieve a thinner body. The thin ideal espoused by the fashion industry is spreading across the globe.
Likewise, Ella, a Latina size sixteen/eighteen model, felt determined to make a name for herself as a Latina plus-size model:
This is a Caucasian-dominated industry. When I first started modeling a few years ago, there weren’t really any Latina plus-size models. Now, there are a lot more of us, like a huge boom. It’s time to represent!
As a Latina, Ella embraced her ethnic culture and strove to diversify the
After Dana, a size sixteen runway and showroom model, gave birth to her son, she questioned whether she could continue modeling after the pregnancy; however, her fellow model friends encouraged her to carry on:
My friend told me, “What’s your problem? Put on a great bra and Spanx and you’re ready to go.” She’s right . . . When I came back [after the pregnancy], it was like a family reunion. Everyone wanted to see pictures of my son. Everyone has been so supportive. I love these girls.
It took the support of other similarly motivated and bodied women for Dana to be at ease with her changed body. When all else failed, she was able to find relief in shapewear.
For these women, a reactionary process—of experiencing shame to attempting to cover up their bodies to final acceptance—that involved the actions of an outside force, such as the boutique owner, another plus-size model, or “friending” someone on Facebook, shifted their understanding of fat and beauty. Like Stephanie and the makeup artist or Joelle and her plus-size model friend, these women responded to positive encouragement from the authoritative voice of a fashion insider. Without this encouragement, most of these women would never have imagined modeling as a career option. Thankful to the usher who convinced her that she could be a plus-size model, Janice acknowledged, “It’s nice to be paid for having this body of curves. Too many girls have eating disorders. I want to be another type of example.” These models began as women who entered the field of modeling as part of a larger reactionary process that hinged on an active break with conventional interpretations of the social identity of a fat woman.
Black and Latina plus-size models who differed from the normative white body in fashion faced additional pressures to be role models in their ethnic communities, whose embrace of larger bodies may be waning. Size sixteen/eighteen model Yvonne, who was black, saw young black women trying to emulate the body types of high-fashion models through dieting:
They want to look like [straight-size] models but they’re genetic anomalies. I don’t want them [the young girls] to blindly change their bodies to match a picture in a magazine and suffer the consequences.
This shift in bodily ideals that Yvonne witnessed matches what anthropologist Anne E. Becker found in the island nation of Fiji, which traditionally idealized a large, robust body. In her book,
Body, Self, and Society: The View from Fiji
, Becker noticed a shift in bodily ideals with the introduction of western television. In a culture centered on food, within a few years after exposure to western images of beauty, young girls began, for the first time, to think of themselves as fat and purged toachieve a thinner body. The thin ideal espoused by the fashion industry is spreading across the globe.
Likewise, Ella, a Latina size sixteen/eighteen model, felt determined to make a name for herself as a Latina plus-size model:
This is a Caucasian-dominated industry. When I first started modeling a few years ago, there weren’t really any Latina plus-size models. Now, there are a lot more of us, like a huge boom. It’s time to represent!
As a Latina, Ella embraced her ethnic culture and strove to diversify the
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