Shiny, Shiny! Shiny Boots of Leather: FATBOYSLIM!!!!!

Protruding clavicles, visible vertebrae’s and a prominent jaw line? Yes please!
On a recent trip to the Tate Liverpool, I became enthralled by a piece of art, part of the DLA Piper sculpture series. The works name ‘Ghost’ was the perfect oxymoron in which the colossal statue of a teenage girl seemed to exude every anxiety felt by gauche young girls who can’t accept their bodies and who want to disappear.
With regards to fashion, the art work was the perfect metaphor of the young models we see today encapsulated throughout the fashion industry and the scrutiny in which they are set to face from their mentors and the media alike.
Ron Mueck’s ‘Ghost’, emphasises perfectly that at the epicentre of the storm that is the size zero debate, stands, a lot of the time, young teenage girls harbouring their own insecurities. More importantly, are we as a nation, where the national average dress size of a woman is a size 14, projecting our own insecurities onto these young still developing ladies? Is fashion refusing to give in to our desperate pleas for curvier models because it knows our big secret? We all want to be skinny!
The transparency of these ‘curvy’ pioneers advocating voluptuous this and plus size that throughout the fashion world is all too obvious these days. Why? Well because the very same women are all too quick to gloat on the cover of a tabloid magazine as soon as they deflate. Britain has become the breeder of the ultimate hypocrite. The concerned have now lost sight of health and the battle has become a lot more personal. This is the real deal ‘Battle of the Bulge!’
It is interesting to assess the argument from the other side. The side of the working model! If our prime concern with regard to the size zero debate is health, then really, who has the better well being? The anti size zero campaigner who submits at times to the odd slab of chocolate cake, large glass of wine and a skip of the treadmill or the size zero teen whom eats her greens, drinks her eight glasses of H2O and puts in twenty minutes with the personal trainer? Of course, there is nothing at all wrong with indulging but when the magnifying glass turns and our lifestyles are exposed is it the judge who becomes the object?
There is no denying that in some cases designers must be more accommodating, especially throughout this current climate when one cannot afford to alienate prospective customers and more importantly when these teenage models grow naturally into their womanly breasts and hips. However it is more apparent now than ever that aspects of the fashion world are changing and attitudes with regards to perceived beauty are beginning to alter. Fit is the new sexy. Beauty is represented by all sizes. During London Fashion Week Mark Fast sent a mixture of fashion and plus sized models down the catwalk. More importantly health, rather than size, is now embodying fashion for example Lara Stone, Coco Rocha, Daria Werbowy, Crystal Wren, and Natalia Vodianova.
And so back to Ghost by Ron Mueck: the forever gawky teenager standing awkwardly in her swim suit, mentally dissecting and altering her body. Then over to me: the size twelve plain Jane who’s hips hang over her jeans, pining for the awkward teens bony legs!