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Boobs or hip bones? What's more attractive? C'mon, fellas. Inquiring minds want to know what y'all think. It started over the weekend with pictures of two celebs on two beaches. LeAnn Rimes in Mexico and Christina Hendricks in Italy.
LeAnn tweeted a photo of herself in a string bikini. The paparazzi caught Christina stepping out of her cover-up. Those two pictures ignited the body wars again. "She looks anorexic." "That's obese." Women can't win. Either we're too thin or too fat.
It's been reported that Christina is 5'8", approximately 154 pounds, and a size 14. When you remember that the average woman's dress size in the 1950s was an 8, you also have to remember that in the 1950s, the average woman was 5'3", 120 pounds, with a waist size of 24" to 25". Today, the average American woman is 5'4", 150 pounds, with a waist size of 34" to 35". And her dress size? 12.
Don't forget that the U.S. Department of Commerce abolished the uniform sizing system for women's clothes in 1983. A size 8 in the 1950s is a size 4 or less today. A size 12 today would be a size 16 or larger in the 1950s. For anyone who sews, we know our "true" size because the sizes on patterns didn't change to fit our vanity as our waists expanded.
My mother was plump from her early 40s onward. At her largest, back in the 1970s, she was a 16. Granted she was only 5'2". Having inherited some of her nicer vintage dresses, it's surprising that they fit me. Me? A size 16? Okay, so I'm 5'10" and don't look as plump as my mother did.
Shockingly, my secret is that my dress size is the American average. Yep, just one dress size smaller than Ms. Hendricks. Hurray for us hourglass-figured women! Other than our figures, Ms. Hendricks and I share the same hair color. But I was born this way! [WARNING! Do NOT click the last link if you are offended by over-the-top music videos. If so, click HERE instead.]
If you ever hear me speak of Susan, she's not a real person. She's my height. Or she would be if she had a head. She also has the exact same proportions in the bust, waist, and hips as I do. But she has three legs instead of two. And she's blue.
She's not a Na'vi. Susan is my body double. My dressmakers form. And here's a secret. I can sew. And pretty darn well, too.
The last "simple" skirt I made had 18 pieces, and that's not counting the lining pieces. My favorite cocktail dress is a made-by-me sumptuous brown 100% cotton velvet completely lined and with boning in the waist. And no, I don't sew for others unless I've birthed them or married them. So don't ask.
On my way to Parents' Weekend at Finola's college last month, I made a pit stop in Manhattan. There are certain places in Manhattan that require a pilgrimage. One of those is a shop in the Lower East Side, but it was too far to travel for just one store. They have beautiful fabrics and are right next door to a bialy store. But a critical mass is more than one fabulous store in a two block radius.
How about dozens of fabulous stores in a two block radius? If you ignore the gentlemen's clubs and topless bars, my pilgrimage stores dot the side streets just south of Times Square off Seventh Avenue. So Rudy cleaned up Times Square. It just means that the seedier side moved a few blocks away from where the tourists are. Back at the fabric stores, I was like a kid in a candy store.
And when in the Garment District, 'tis best to dress in black, and funky shoes if possible. I didn't mention my pit stop to a friend I ran into getting coffee before getting on the road. 'Tis best to leave an air of mystery and then show up a few weeks (or months depending on how fast my project goes) wearing expensive looking togs that were handmade for more than half the cost of ready-to-wear.
And shhh . . . keep this under your hat. I don't want Dierdre to know that I shop at Mood, where the Project Runway contestants shop. She'll want a weekend shopping trip.
When the Wall Street Journal published an article about Wal-Mart’s decision to stop selling fabric in some of their stores, the first thing that crossed my mind was “I haven’t bought fabric at Wal-Mart ever!” Someone told me that sewing is a dying art. I’m not really sure about that. For most home seamstresses and tailors, if we’re going to put that much time and effort into something, we’re going to use the highest quality fabric we can afford and it’s not found at Wal-Mart.
But that got me thinking about the differences between home-tailored clothing and ready-to-wear store-bought clothing. Sewing hasn’t changed much through the years. Neither have the patterns that I use. Sure the styles change. But on the back of every pattern is a size chart that is the same today as it was in the 1950s.
Amazingly, for clothes that I buy at the store, I wear the exact same size today that I did when I graduated from high school! When I graduated, I was 5’10” and 110 pounds soaking wet. (I wouldn’t have been able to step on the catwalk in Madrid because my BMI was 15.8.) I have since had three children and put on a few years. (My BMI is now in the healthy range.) According to the back of my patterns, I should be wearing clothing that is at least three sizes larger than what I was wearing in high school. Surely I’m the same size I used to be! Dressmakers don’t lie! Do they?
Hogwash! Somewhere in Milan or Paris or New York there’s a Jack Nicholson-like fashionista yelling at women “You can’t handle the truth!” Do they think that we’re so much more emotionally fragile than men that we can’t deal with our ever expanding waistlines? Men go into stores and buy their clothes by their waist size and inseam lengths. Why do women have to assuage our vanity by buying sizes we haven’t worn in decades? Seventh Avenue isn’t going to let their sizes slide back toward normalcy any more than we Americans will give up our love for hamburgers, French fries and Phish Food ice cream.
Maybe it’s all tied together. There’s some great big giant conspiracy between fashion designers and the food industry. They’ll just keep feeding us oversized portions at a never-ending trough of all-you-can-eat food-bar gluttony. Then they’ll convince us that we’re just as svelte as we were before marriage and kids and two cars and a mortgage by selling us clothing in sizes that have been dumbed down for our acceptance.
I guess I’ll go pick up a new pair of jeans at Wal-Mart. After all, they have a wide selection in my size. Just a few aisles down from the in-store McDonald’s.
