 | Chako
Street/Urban Wear Expert
The word on the street is... fashion! Our sassy Street Wear Expert Chako is the urban outfitter you need to sport serious threads, G. |
How Often Do You Contemplate Body Image?
3/20/01
For those of you who haven't seen FirstView.com, please check it out. The
fashion is amazing, however, the models are appalling. You've got to wonder why
designers choose the women they choose to trot down the runway and how the heck they
keep their torsos up with those stick legs. It's quite scary. I think I've been
thinking about this a bit much, but I've also been looking at a lot of magazines and
websites to get a feel of what is out there for spring and summer. Why is it that
body image is inescapable for women? Why does society keep pushing certain images at
us that compel some of us to shape ourselves to imitate them?
Another question I've been posing is the difference between the aesthetics of the
high fashion model (couture) and the hip-hop model. Maybe this is blatantly obvious
to some of you more cognisant ladies, however, it is something that I've been giving
some thought to. High fashion models seem so out of reality for us-mainly, their body
types. Hip hop models are more real. This is probably because hip hop fashion takes
it's influence from the streets, but then again, so does couture fashion. The girls
of hip hop seem thin, but most have muscle definition and not because they are devoid
of meat on their bones. They also seem to run more across cultures and embrace all
sorts of body types.
Hip hop's icons range for the ridiculously salacious Lil' Kim to the buxom Queen
Latifah. The women of the hip hop world seems to embrace women that are 100% women
(while the male side of popular hip hop seems to objectify them all too much) of all
sizes. You rarely see a woman in a hip-hop video that looks under-fed or gaunt. If
they are thin, they are usually buff, toned, and at least healthy looking (let's just
forget about Janet Jackson's body in her new video--it's ridiculously buff!) where pop
singers seem to be dropping more and more weight (look at Britney Spears or Christina
Aguilera)!
I guess what I'm saying is that seemingly, hip hop models are more real (and
let's discount Betsey Johnson's fabulous runway shows) and hip hop fashion seems to
embrace women of all sizes, whereas clothes are cut to fit the lanky models of the
runway in high fashion--- so Bourgeouis and intending to keep it that way!
If you have any comments on this, feel free to email me at chako@dailyfashion.com
Peace,
Chako
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