Scribblings of Robs

3 Aug 2011

Um…No. Not quite VOGUE.

Aus VOGUE is crowing about the fact that they’ve put a plus-size model on their cover.

Hooray! It’s the first ever plus-size model to grace their pages. Quelle achievement!

Except has anyone noticed that she’s not plus-size? Well I don’t think she is.

And now that I think about it, why is this such a big deal?

So you put a curvy woman on the cover of a magazine. Well done you.

Frankly you should have been doing this years ago. Rubens’ paintbrush was celebrating curves way back in the 1600′s, where’ve you been?  Plus the majority of the world is not skeletal and 10 bucks says the majority of VOGUE’s market  is not the uber-skinny. You’re telling me that in 52 years, you haven’t published a plus-size  fashion shoot?

No wonder your sales are down Cupcakes.

Back to the point. In my books Robyn Lawley is astoundingly gorgeous but to my eyeballs she isn’t plus-sized. And publicly labelling her as such is just another one of the reasons that women have the multitude of body issues that they do.

Because now I’m wondering if Lawley is the new plus-sized benchmark?  And if she’s plus-size…where does that place the rest of us on the VOGUE scale of skinny? Am I no longer classified as slim? Am I now medium? Should I put down this Bar One? Should I throw up everything I’ve ever eaten?

And good god what’s skinny now?

Is that like triple zero?

No VOGUE No. Despite the editor repeatedly protesting that this wasn’t a stunt, it has to be.

You must be trying to do something wonderfully ‘controversial.’ You’ve decided that you’ll put a plus-size girl on the cover and ride on the whole celebrating ‘real women’ gravy train.

Except she won’t really be plus-size, so you won’t really be compromising your 52 year-old brand identity but you will benefit from all the wonderful controversy you’ve caused. Because you’ll just PR, PR, PR and then watch as it grabs headlines, infiltrates blogs, sparks debate, damages the female psyche and happily boosts your site traffic and dwindling magazine sales.

YAY! What a brilliant strategy.

If you’re going to sing from the rooftops that you’ve put a plus-size model on your cover.

Then actually put a plus-size model on the cover.

Pardon the pun VOGUE, but go big or go home.

*images sourced here