Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Imagine

Updated 3/2017-- photos and all links (except to my own posts) removed as many no longer active. 

As you may know, I sew.   I grew up sewing many of my own clothes.  Now it’s mostly quilts, but I still occasional make an item of clothing.
It’s always fun to imagine how a certain pattern would work on the intended person (me, a friend, a niece, etc), how it would look in this fabric, this color, this print.
Always fun to imagine where you might wear the new dress, the new shirt, the new skirt.  Always fun to imagine how you might accessorize it.  Imagine the new shoes you might need.
Burda has a sewing blog I follow.  Yesterday one of their posts was title:  6 New Patterns in Sizes 44-52.  I was hopeful the featured models would be the same sizes.  They didn’t.  (photo credit)
Even worse, the models aren’t even shown wearing the pattern (inset) featured. 
Now, while I can look at the inset and imagine how it might look on me, in this fabric or that, in this color or that, what I really want to imagine is wearing the lovely dress on the right.
Wouldn’t it have been much more fair to a size 44-52 women who wants to look her best to feature the pattern made in the appropriate fabric on a woman her size?
I’m not the only one who feels this way.  Here’s a sampling of the comments:
by lila-1:  Aside from the fact that you have modeled the ‘plus size’ designs on skinny girls (wth??), the majority of these patterns are bordering on muumuus
……
by Julianne Dodds:  I can’t really weigh in (ha!) on if these are good styles for plus-sized gals cause I don’t see any examples :P
I wish all women were a healthy size, athletic and active,  but we aren’t.  Pattern companies, as well as clothing manufactures, should provide appropriate models.  Size 2 – 6 models when selling to size 44 is NOT appropriate.

Check out Dr. Val’s recent post on Accepting Different Body Types, But Not Embracing Obesity

1 comment:

Intransigentia said...

I knew there was a reason I'd given up on Burda lately... Not using plus-size models I'm used to. Sadly, just about nobody does. But for $#!@ sake, have the respect to show photographs of the actual garment the pattern is for. That spread is like putting a picture of a pizza next to a pasta recipe.