Manolo for the Big Girl

This poster bears an image of the 25,000-year old statue called the Venus of Willendorf.

Is she not beautiful?

Hat tip: A wonderful post at Big Fat Deal

 Francesca feels safe, this time, in assuming that the subject of this painting, “Woman with a Parasol” by Pierre Auguste Renoir is, in fact, a woman. And what a beautiful one at that!

(A poster print of this painting is available here.)

Francesca asks:

What is this woman thinking about?

And, while the woman is thinking whatever she is thinking, how long will it be before she realizes that the little child is about to run off to Cincinnati?

(A poster print of this image is available here.)

Francesca very much likes this woman’s headband, her lipstick, her dog, her taste in wall art, and the gleam in her eye. But unless she is going to garden in her backyard, sister needs a clothing makeover! What would you give her to wear?

(The watermarks do not appear on the “real” image.)

Francesca just loves this superfantastic, sexy image by the Degas, called Woman Drying Herself, perhaps because the woman is shaped like Francesca! (Only Francesca is a little bigger in the tummy and upper arms.)

(You can purchase this image to hang in your bathroom or bedroom here!)

Francesca likes to think that this woman is getting ready for a Big Event, and is about to put on her Tadashi evening gown

and Stuart Weitzman shoes she bought on sale yesterday when she saw them on Manolo for the Big girl

and will flirt all night with her boyfriend, who will be more than happy when they come home and she takes the dress and the shoes off again.

And Francesca will remember to put on some of her Euphoria!

Oh, I mean, the girl in the sketch.

The contemporary American painter, Charles Pace, has created this image which Francesca finds delightful:

It is called Fat Hula Girls, and Francesca loves it. Are they not very buxom and soft? Do they not seem to be having the time of their lives?

Francesca does not know whether Pace meant for his painting of the Fat Hula Girls to be delightful or ironic, but she doesn’t care.  It is a fun painting which, in the eyes of the Francesca, celebrates the Appley goodness of the round, fleshy belly and the fun that can be had with the smooth and squishy upper arms. Francesca wants to dance with these ladies!

(A poster of this image is available from the superfantastic folk at barewalls.com here.)

(Decorating tip: Pair “Fat Hula Girls” on the wall with one of these other images by the same artist; the colors of the paintings recall each other, but the “stone faces” paintings temper the kitch factor of the Hula girls. Of course, the posters would be big attention-grabbers, so best to use them in rooms that are either very minimalist or which have colors that blend well with the art)

Francesca’s last couple of posts, and the comments to them, leave her with an important question: For purposes of this blog, just how big constitutes big?

In recommending plus-size fashions, Francesca’s rule of thumb is that an item of clothing is fair game if it is available in a Size 16 and/or higher. Size 14 is often available in “regular” stores, albeit not as often as size 12, while Size 16 is usually the smallest size available in the plus-size stores. Francesca knows that one could write an entire blog on the travails of the girls who wear size 14, which is often considered too big for the regular stores and too small for the plus-size stores. But she has to make a mental border for herself somewhere. So, for this blog, size 16 is usually it. That is why she sometimes recommends clothing by J. Crew, who are not exactly known for catering to fat girls, because they do have an entire Size 16 section on their site (as well as fashions for the Tall girls, to whom Francesca sometimes wishes to nod and wink), though their failure to offer sizes 18 and up makes Francesca feel a bit squeamish about referring to them too often.

Then we come to the selections for the posts on “Big Girls in Art.” Several readers said that they do not believe that the woman (apparently Salome) in this painting is actually big:

Oh, oh, oh, now we have come straight into the hornet’s nest! For, though this woman  probably does wear a Size 16 or 18 on the bottom (she is a beautiful and voluptuous Pear, and very aesthetically pleasing, and probably has a hard time finding skirts and pants which fit her hips but are not too wide at the waist) Francesca fears, some readers may have looked at this image and thought “if that girl is big, what am I?” They may also have thought “Why is Francesca buying into the Big Bad Media idea that a woman with any fat on her is Big?”

Francesca will answer the second question first. In an ideal world, the Big Bad Media would not categorize people by their size at all. But the whole point of this blog is that our world is not ideal, and women’s whose hips or tummies or breasts are more than an arbitrary size are considered “Big” either in terms of where they can find clothes, or whether they are considered “too big” or “too fat” by others, or both.

The point of Big Girls in Art is to show that indeed that mysterious fault line (and Francesca chooses that term on purpose) is indeed arbitrary. There was a time when the woman with very generous hips was considered the ideal, and was celebrated in what was then The Media. There was a time when having a large butt was so attractive that women wore bustles to make theirs reach out to Indiana. In other words, Francesca wants to demonstrate that the problem is not us, it is this strange, arbitrary idea that thinner is better - an idea started, Francesca thinks, partly because thin women serve as better hangers on which to model the fashions on runways, and partly because having the time and money to maintain a perfectly flat belly indicates wealth in our age. The problem is not us or our genes or our class, it is the time.  Not so long ago, the woman whose genes made her predisposed to the waif-like frame was the one with the problem.

And in answer to the first question . . . if the woman in this painting is big, do you know what you are?

Beautiful.

Francesca thinks the woman in this painting is absolutely stunning and sensuous, and if Francesca were a man she’d totally be [***doing an action the name for which Francesca is censoring upon further reflection, until she figures out how to say it without offending any readers- but she thinks you know what she means****] to images of this very Big Girl . . . except that she does not know what to make of this scene. Is this image sensuous or creepy? Is the woman dreaming? Fantasizing? Grave robbing?

What in the world . . . ?

And yet, it is powerful and beautiful . . .

(A poster print of this painting is available from the fine folks at Barewalls here.)

Here we have the lovely pear-shaped “Reclining Woman With Flowers” by Rachel Deacon.

Francesca asks: What is this woman looking at and what is she thinking?

(A poster print of this painting is available from the superfantastic Barewalls.com here!)

Francesca is back! Did you miss her? I missed you! So much has been going on here in the blog. We learned how to look good naked,  Plumcake acknowledged my erudition, and we discussed why big ol’ briefs are better than “arse trinkets.” For the record, the music which would play upon Francesca’s entry to a room would either be “Fame,” or “What a Feelin,’” or “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” depending on her mood and the occasion.

Onward to the art! Francesca just loves this painting, by Katherine Tisne.  To Francesca, the woman in the image seems serene and wise, and confident in her wisdom and her age. Do you agree or no?

(Francesca also enjoys the juxtaposition of the woman’s assymetrical clothing against the symmetrical backdrop.)

A poster print of this image is available here.

Here we have the beautiful big girl who is playing the cello. She even has the little cherub to hold her music for her.

Francesca asks: What is she thinking about?

A poster print of this painting is available here.