Yesterday we wrapped our lookbook shoot for BODYPOP – my new high fashion, high intensity activewear line.
We’re also a few days into our music video shoot before we wrap that too. Never have I ever produced anything of this caliber (I’m usually in front of the cam, not behind it) and I’ve been riding this HUGE learning curve. Tough stuff. However, I’m blessed that I’ve had talented friends and amazing people in the industry step in to help us out with valuable advice or work with us side by side. Everybody involved has brought their expertise to the table in order for us to make my original vision come to life.
It’s so cool literally turning your thoughts, your dreams, your ideas into reality. AH I can’t wait for you to see everything. Some of these designs literally were from my original sketchbook from college.
Now, I want to talk about something else.
Today I posted a picture with 2 lovely ladies who helped me model the collection.
Then it came. The barrage of commenters saying that they were “disappointed” that I didn’t use “real women” to model my line.
Real huh? Well…one is actually a Blogilates fan and the other is a friend from college. I can also assure you that I hugged both of them and they didn’t magically disappear into thin air. They were made up of molecules that constituted a legitimate female human being. They were in fact, real.
But now I am going to dig deeper. Because I know that what we are really talking about here isn’t the definition of the word “real” but the interpretation of what it means to be a “real woman” in today’s society.
Let’s take a look at this picture. Can you tell me which person you think looks most “real” to you?
Or shall I ask it like this: Which woman represents the “average American woman” best?
According to statistics, today’s average American woman is 5’4”, has a waist size of 34-35”, and weighs between 140-150 lbs with a dress size of 12-14. About 50 years ago, the average American woman was 5’3-4” with a waist of 24-25”, a weight of 120 lbs, and a size 8 dress size. I don’t even need to get into vanity sizing, but that size 8 from fifty years ago is not what a size 8 is today. It is actually a size 4. The US Department of Commerce dropped it’s uniform sizing system in 1983, so designers can do whatever they please in order to make women feel smaller and buy more clothes. So the takeaway here is that the average dress size fifty years ago was a size 4 and now it is a size 14.
Now that we’ve established that the average person has gotten bigger and heavier throughout the years (due to lack of movement, the increase of fast food, larger portion sizes etc.), we can talk on a level playing field. Are you mad that I didn’t choose to showcase models that represent our “average US woman” which really is a huge red flag that something needs to be done here? Today over 30% of the world is overweight or obese. That’s 2.1 BILLION people. There’s 7 billion people in the world.
Between 1980 t0 2013, rates of being overweight soared 28% in adults and 47% in children.
That’s scary.
