Manolo for the Big Girl Fashion, Lifestyle, and Humor for the Plus Sized Woman.

December 3, 2008

Miss England: Not So Perfect 10

Filed under: The Fat's in the Fire — Miss Plumcake @ 4:21 pm

Oh England, you bunch of green and pleasant nutjobs, do me a favor and put down ye merry olde cracke pype and let me lay a little church on you.Miss England, Too Big For Lagerfeld's Britches

Size 8 is not fat.

Need to see it again? Okay.

SIZE 8 IS NOT FAT.

*sigh*

So remember the Miss England pageant, where a plus-size girl made the finals and we’re all “girl power” and when she didn’t win we pretty much heard nothing but crickets because

a) Fat Girl Loses Beauty Contest isn’t a headline (although she was First Runner-Up!)

b) British pageants are way, way boring. Frankly, if a beauty pageant doesn’t end up being turned into a Lifetime Original Movie with Valerie Bertinelli setting SOMEONE on fire with a flaming baton, then I don’t want to see it.

Well, it seems the reigning Miss England, Laura Coleman of Leicestershire (of whom I automatically approve on account that her fine county makes excellent cheeses) at a British size 10 –which is about an 8 on the other side of the pond– is being told she is too fat for a modeling career.

And the thing is, I’m not even a little bit surprised.

Sure, MAYBE a size 8 could be a catalog model these days, but for editorial high fashion stuff? No way. That’s the land of the size 0/2. Delightful, the world’s most beautiful xylophones. Not that there’s anything wrong with a naturally-occurring xylophone, but a little variation Maestro, if you please.

A beauty queen can’t get a job where the main requirement is being beautiful. That’s like me not being able to get a job where the main requirement is drinking gin and judging people (Confidential to my 9th Grade Career Counselor: HA HA TOLD YOU SO. AWESOME = ME. –ed.)

There’s ALWAYS going to be someone telling you you’re not beautiful enough. Always.  You can be a size 0 or 8, 18 or 28 and you’re never, ever evereverever going to please the whole world.

So?

Screw ’em. Set your own standards, create your own beauty, live the way you damn well feel and if they don’t like it well…I can’t legally say what to do, but it involves a cha cha heel, some vaseline and a trained Russian bear. Email me for the diagram.

21 Comments

  1. You are awesome.

    Comment by Brooke — December 3, 2008 @ 6:39 pm

  2. I thought she was a size 16 when she won, which is why it was a big deal. So the story then becomes: Big Girl shrinks to nearly half her size to get into modeling and they STILL won’t have her. Must shrink to 1/8 or less.

    Comment by raincoaster — December 4, 2008 @ 2:07 am

  3. @raincoaster
    two different women. The plus size girl lost, but the winner who was an 8 is still too “fat” to be a model. :)

    It does make you realise that fashion models aren’t about beauty, but a glorified coat hanger. The higher ones get up/”promoted” because very rarely, you can be a glorified coat hanger and beautiful/distinctive/etc.

    Comment by leymoo — December 4, 2008 @ 9:28 am

  4. Sometimes there’s just no winning for losing.

    Still, this story illustrates the difference between beauty queens and fashion models. Beauty queens are expected to look sexually enticing while high fashion models are expected to act as human coat hangers with as few curves as possible. So really, the two are barely connected professionally, even though that’s intuitively confusing.

    Of course I’m one of those wacky people who thinks that part of the challenge of fashion design by definition is the fact that you’re working in three dimensions to emphasize the beauty of the human figure. I’d much rather see models of a much wider variety of shapes and sizes. It does, however, make the designer’s job easier if (s)he makes all the samples in one size to fit one type of body.

    Comment by Twistie — December 4, 2008 @ 11:46 am

  5. I so agree. You are *awesome* (and that’s a word I don’t use often).

    As for the revenge directions, for which some people may need diagrams, I respectfully request that you please leave me out of that process. Thank you.

    Comment by ChaChaHeels — December 4, 2008 @ 12:00 pm

  6. Ok, weird that you mention Valerie Bertenelli because I was just forced to sit and watch something with her, pre-Jenny Craig, while my size-obsessed and self-obsessed aunt-in-law repeatedly said “She REALLY WAS HEAVY here” whlie glaring over at me (keep in mind I am way bigger than Valerie at her biggest). Had I known that setting people on fire with a baton was an option I would have taken it.

    Comment by Chaser — December 4, 2008 @ 12:22 pm

  7. I would just like to say that I love you, Plumcake.

    Comment by Rachel — December 4, 2008 @ 2:04 pm

  8. I’ll drink to that, Rachel.

    Comment by Jane — December 4, 2008 @ 11:04 pm

  9. why is she even applying to agencies?????????

    During the competition for Miss England, she was saying that she
    “hated the modeling industry” and she “would much rather be a beauty
    queen any day than a model” She used her bad experiences in the
    industry to win public votes. Once she won in she was quoted as saying
    she “Hopes her new title will help her have a successful modeling
    career” Shes a hypocrite. She completely slated the industry to win the
    title, so i’m not surprised agencies are turning her away. She gave the
    industry a bad name…and now shes trying to be a be a part of the
    industry. Like i said…HYPOCRITE.

    PLUS agencies are also saying they have turned her away because she does not have the right look. The press just like to focus on the fact they one agency said she was too large.

    Comment by hannah — December 5, 2008 @ 7:24 am

  10. ye merry olde cracke pype

    That is utterly delightful.

    Comment by La Petite Acadienne — December 5, 2008 @ 5:48 pm

  11. It’s a crap job in a crap industry anyway. Before you know it you are beating up your servants with the phone. I think she should look into long distance trucking.

    Comment by Judith in Umbria — December 6, 2008 @ 12:17 pm

  12. From England, may I just say that the phrase “ye merry olde crack pype” made me laugh Earl Grey tea up my nose.

    Comment by MissPrism — December 6, 2008 @ 5:03 pm

  13. I wear a US size 8 and a UK size 12. She may even be a size *6* and being told she’s too fat . . . which, okay, appalling either way. Just appalling.

    Comment by Catherine — December 6, 2008 @ 5:35 pm

  14. Why We Think She’ll Be Big The onetime Oakland Raiders cheerleader had a viral hit with an impression of her judgmental manicurist. After a stretch on MADtv , the tiniest Next Big Thing just finished shooting a TBS sitcom pilot with

    Comment by valerie bertinelli — December 6, 2008 @ 5:41 pm

  15. Sadly, what Catherine said a few comments up is true. A UK size 10 is a US size 6.

    Jeez, what a heifer. /sarcasm

    Comment by Anonymous — December 6, 2008 @ 10:36 pm

  16. If Stacey McKenzie can be a fashion model, then this girl certainly could be.

    Comment by khazar — December 7, 2008 @ 6:59 pm

  17. Plumcake–well said!

    And that job description sounds positively heavenly.

    Comment by frumpiefox — December 8, 2008 @ 1:41 pm

  18. ” the world’s most beautiful xylophones” – LMAO! I almost spewed Red Bull all over my computer screen! That was great!

    Comment by jen — December 8, 2008 @ 6:07 pm

  19. Well, as they say, that’s absolute bollocks. And here I was thinking that England has a saner view of women’s bodies and sizes then the US :-(

    Comment by Elisa — December 9, 2008 @ 9:52 am

  20. What Catherine said. A UK size 10 is often a US size 6, rather than a size 8. And yes, size 6 – ESPECIALLY if you’re not 5’10” or taller – is too heavy to be a fashion model. Women who are 5’10” are expected to be a US size 4 or smaller. It’s insane. And yes, the requirements for “beauty queen” – some curves (or so it used to be) – are diametrically opposed to the requirements for “fashion model”; designers don’t want anything so plebian as flesh to interrupt the flow of the design.

    In my opinion, if human flesh gets in the way of the design, you are no longer designing clothing. You are making fabric sculptures. They may be very pretty – or not – but they have nothing to do with clothing, which implies garments for people to wear. And people come in different sizes. So, “fashion designers” are interested in fabric sculpture; I prefer clothing designers, who are interested in designing clothes.

    Comment by La BellaDonna — December 12, 2008 @ 2:18 pm

  21. Designers/fashion industry have their standards, its their business so they get to set the bar where ever they please, i don’t see why everyone is all flabbergasted about this.

    Comment by M — January 3, 2009 @ 12:30 am

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