So let me ask you all a question. This whole Crystal Renn Paris Vogue pubic hair kerfuffle, do we care about it?
Because although I get paid pretty well for this gig, I certainly don’t get paid enough to spend time contemplating someone else’s personal topiary unless there is great public demand for it.
For those of you unfamiliar with the story, basically she took her pants off for some Carene Roitfeld-directed shoot in Paris Vogue to reveal what is almost certainly one of the finest merkins ever committed to a mainstream editorial glossy, and I kind of don’t care.
Because it’s like this: Crystal Renn is a great model. Full stop. I don’t mean a great plus-size model, I mean a great model, Dovima great, and I’m not even one of her fans. She’s got that killer clavicle and her bone structure is amazing and she is magic in front of a camera. She’s a fashionable flavor and can pretty much be considered a mainstream feature in editorials, and that’s great. I’m happy for her because I’m happy to see ANY diversity in the fashion industry, but now that she IS mainstream, can we stop following her every move? Please?
I get so tired of the sound and fury over Renn as supposed big girl role model. She’s not. She’s a model. Does she represent the average plus-size woman? No. And guess what, Linda Evanglista doesn’t represent the average straight-sized woman either. They are gorgeous freaks of nature. Honestly I’m just glad we’re getting back to visually interesting models, because this army of uniformly skeletal 16 year-olds with hard, anonymous faces is boring me to death.
So do I feel validated as a big girl when I see Crystal Renn topless with countable ribs and an extraordinarily bad Cleopatra wig?
No, not really. What about when she’s on all fours with her butt in the wind machine? Nope, not then either. But that’s okay, that’s not her job.
Her job is to visually tell whatever story the creative director of a particular editorial shoot wants to tell, just like any other model and if that involves showing off an impressively cultivated (although almost certainly fake: models, as a rule, don’t have public hair) pantyforest, so be it. I don’t care.
I saw an article about this and my response was a vigorous “MEH.”
Comment by LL — April 29, 2010 @ 2:05 pm
I think the most beautiful and interesting shot was the purple suit. The butt-out one is offensive, no matter what size she is considered.
as for your phrase:
“Honestly I’m just glad we’re getting back to visually interesting models, because this army of uniformly skeletal 16 year-olds with hard, anonymous faces is boring me to death”
I second that emotion
Comment by klee — April 29, 2010 @ 3:17 pm
I too wouldn’t really consider Crystal Renn a plus-size model. It has nothing to do with her being a particular clothing size but it simply doesn’t do justice to the range she has presented. She, like Plumcake, is quite simply a regulation hottie (What did I do before Regina George ‘coined’ that phrase?).
‘Dovima with the Elephants’, I used to really like that photo til I noticed that the elephant’s foot had been chained. I’m sure that was a common practice then (and even now) but it still disturbs me. And on a superficial level, part of the reason the picture works so well is (IMO) because she looks so glamorous yet fearless. The shackle spoils that illusion.
Comment by Frances — April 29, 2010 @ 4:46 pm
Once again, I must say how much I really love you, Plumcake. I too am tired of the never ending Crystal Renn reports. That was one of the reasons why I didn’t like her book. She was reported on so much and her story told so often that I didn’t learn anything new. I am glad to see Crystal adding visual diversity in the magazines, and I’m hoping that will lead to more diversity in glossy pages. And, as a regular plus-size woman, Crystal Renn represents me as much as a Kate Moss represents me. If there were suddenly a bunch of models shaped like Roseanne Barr or Paula Deen, then I’d be impressed.
Comment by BrooklynShoeBabe — April 29, 2010 @ 7:44 pm
Well I have to say that her big ol’ bush is kind of refreshing. You have no idea how sick I am of seeing completely bald vaginas everywhere I look.
Comment by Bianca of The Zaftig Chicks — April 29, 2010 @ 8:43 pm
@Bianca, word. BUT it’s a fake. At least I’m 99% sure it is. I mean, if you want to get into some deep sociological stuff, what does it say about Western Culture that (and I’m paraphrasing my pal Violet here, who said it a million times more elegantly) that natural pubic hair is so outrageous and the bald eagle look which is fake is the norm. The fake IS the (perceived) norm so we are left faking the actual norm (i.e., Renn’s ladycarpet).
Comment by Plumcake — April 30, 2010 @ 12:25 am
I’m kind of bored by this whole over-sexualising of models. I don’t want to see models naked and/or in sexy poses (which usually seem on the masochistic, subdued kind). I want to see models in clothes. Interesting clothes I would like to see myself in. I don’t usually run around with a merkin (this site is such an education for the humble learner of the English language!), but I run around in skirts, dresses and pants and since I always thought it was a models job to sell clothes I’d say: Get on with it. I don’t care to see you naked. Fashion mags should be about, well, fashion, if I want to see naked women (and that’s a big “if”), I’d get a different sort of magazine.
Comment by Cara — April 30, 2010 @ 6:43 am
Other people’s thatching is Not My Business. Count me uncaring.
Comment by Rebekka — April 30, 2010 @ 8:18 am
I am way more intrigued by that magenta-ish suit in the picture shown…mainly because it’s the only suit I’ve ever liked that didn’t come pictured with a coordinating church hat.
Comment by ChloeMireille — April 30, 2010 @ 10:55 am
Add my voice to the chorus of “meh.” Crystal is a stunning model who’s done some beautiful editorial work that is both interesting to look at AND makes me want to own everything she’s wearing. Frankly, she’s too talented for that fake edgy shock value crap.
Comment by Evie — April 30, 2010 @ 11:06 am
She really is stunning, goodness knows, and I enjoy looking at her. But being pretty, no matter what your weight, is not exactly rocket science. Or newsworthy. Bored now.
Comment by Style Spy — April 30, 2010 @ 11:18 am
“BUT it’s a fake. At least I’m 99% sure it is. ”
Oh, most definitely.
Comment by Astra — April 30, 2010 @ 1:01 pm
You know, it never occured to me that it was fake, even after Plumcake called it a merkin. That’s what I get for only taking a quick peek.
Comment by Bianca of The Zaftig Chicks — April 30, 2010 @ 2:07 pm
@ Plumcake:
There is something odd about a society that insists that women have no (or pretend to have no) body hair and more particularly pubic hair.
IMHO, there is an element of pedophilia there, in wanting to make a grown woman resemble a pre-pubescent girl.
Comment by Geogrrl — April 30, 2010 @ 2:55 pm
@Geogrrrl, I think it’s weird too, but I have a hard time going down the pedo argument, since it pretty clearly springs from the porn industry who are also the fine folks who brought us basketball sized fake breasts.
@Bianca: I was telling a friend how I imagined Carene Roitfeld standing over her coven of stylists fluffing and setting and arranging it juuuust so. Cracked me up.
Comment by Plumcake — April 30, 2010 @ 3:19 pm
Well, if there is one person whose style is one I don’t appreciate, it’s Carine Roitfeld’s. I somehow feel she’s responsible for that butt presentation/panties around ankles with skirt lifted shot. Believe me when I say I do not ever wish to purchase any of the pictured clothing in that shot, thank you so much.
But that magenta leather suit is something I’d wear in a minute. Specifically, the minute when my plus sized chest becomes far smaller, and my plus sized waist becomes less plus-sized and more defined.
Comment by chachaheels — May 1, 2010 @ 8:56 am