Fashion comes in all sizes

It was the news heard around the world — or rather, the fashion world. According to multiple sources, supermodel and Cat Daddy YouTube dancer extraordinaire Kate Upton would grace the cover of Vogue this upcoming June.

What did you say? June? Isn’t that a little ways off? Sure it’s only — gasp! — the end of March, but early May is right around the corner and soon the mailboxes of millions of people out there will be stuffed with what is most likely to be a provocative and sexy Upton Vogue issue.

Upton’s rise through the supermodel ranks has been nothing short of extraordinary. While she definitely hit the genetic lottery, Upton’s 33-25-36 measurements, platinum blonde hair and seductive beauty mark above her lip were basically a curse in the modeling world. When Upton received the honor of being the cover model for Sports Illustrated’s 2011 “Swimsuit Issue,” a booking agent for the Victoria’s Secret fashion show stated that Upton would never be in one of its shows or catalogues, since she has “the kind of face that anyone with enough money can go out and buy.”

Skinny Gossip, an online blog with tabs such as “Starving Tip of the Day” called Upton a “little piggy” and said that when she graces the runway she looks like she’s “confidently lumbering up the runway like there’s a buffet at the end of it.”

Classy.

Luckily, there are those who praise Upton’s fuller shape, which by average American statistics, is actually thin. In a world where the “norm” is considered being 5’10” and a size zero, Upton is a breath of fresh air, a light at the end of the tunnel.

This is a 21-year-old girl who has the power to change the world. It might sound a bit dramatic, yet it’s true. How many times have you heard someone who, while staring in the mirror, says “I’m fat”? How many times have you done that yourself?

Even though we might not give it much credence, what we see displayed in our magazines and in pop culture has a devastating influence on our lives. Constantly seeing skinny, waifish models, used for their bodies and not for anything else, will drill the image of perfection into young people’s heads. We will constantly aim for an idea of perfection that might not exist for us.

Yes, some of us are “lucky” and are born with the ability to eat three cheeseburgers and not gain a pound. I had a friend in high school who could literally eat the world Krishna-style and not look like anything other than a runway model.

The problem lies in the fact that so many girls are physically altering the way that they look to get down to this size. There is a huge difference between naturally being a size zero — these girls exist, I swear! — to being a bit larger but thinking that by starving and/or exercising, they can look like the models in the glossy pages of a magazine.

The second women and girls start trying to change their natural shape — one given to us by genetics — we start playing with human nature. Exercise and eating healthy are always ideal, but obsessing over ideas of perfection and thinness is a sickness in and of itself.

According to the Fashion Model Directory, Upton is a size four. And yet she is considered “curvy” and a role model for the average woman (by the way, the average woman in the United States is a size 14).

The Council of Fashion Designers of America is a nonprofit used as a guild for the top designers in the United States. A few years ago, President Diane Von Furstenberg and the CFDA released a new set of model guidelines. According to the statement, designers within the CFDA will “encourage models who may have an eating disorder to seek professional help in order to continue modeling” and “supply healthy meals, snacks and water backstage and at shoots and provide nutrition and fitness education.”

In the fashion world, models are routinely forced to work 12-hour days, surviving on nothing but cigarettes and Diet Coke. It’s unfortunate that water had to be in a set of guidelines.

Hopefully, an American Vogue cover would be a start. Upton has graced the cover of Vogue Italia, British Vogue and GQ. She was also featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue twice But what do all of these shoots have in common? She is shot as a blonde bombshell, sucking a lollipop and rolling around in the sand. Yes, Upton is sexy, but it’s time we see a different look on her.

By covering her up and putting her in actual clothes — ones that grace the runway and in spreads — Vogue would be showing the world that curvy can be fashion-forward, that there is no such thing as “one look.”

The world is filled with beautiful women whose sizes differ. I’m tired of seeing the same nameless model over and over again. It’s time for a change, and though size four is a revolution for the industry, perhaps it’ll set it on the track toward something actually … normal.

Sheridan Watson is a junior majoring in critical studies. Her column “A Stitch In Time” runs Tuesdays.