A few days ago, Mr. Twistie started cackling from the kitchen where he had his laptop set up. When I went to check what was causing this reaction, he showed me a couple YouTube vids of Katy Brand.

I hadn’t heard of Katy before, but I am now officially a fan. Why? Because of this awesome Amy Winehouse parody (now with Spanish subtitles!).

Amy Winehouse parodies not your bag? No problem. How about this fabulous send-up of Lily Allen? Note that some of the lyrics may be NSFW.

Check out a couple vids, and have fun!

Look! The October issue of O Magazine has a feature on where to shop for larger sizes:

This image was taken from the website of our friends at Kiyonna.com, who are included in the feature. The blouse mentioned in O is available here.

Here is the cover:

The headline says: “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE THIN to be gorgeous: The knockout clothes that prove it.”

Of course, they also have the obligatory diet ideas but still . . . Kudos to Oprah and her staff for being plus-size friendly. Keep it coming, with more, similar features and lots of plus-size models!

Thank you to our reader Jamie, who alerted us to the celebrations in Vienna surrounding the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Venus of Willendorf.

She is indeed the beautiful, fertile, sexy, voluptuous, original superfantastic Big Girl!

By now you may have heard that one of our Big Girl celebrity favorites, Nikki Blonsky, was arrested (along with her dad) on charges of assault:

 Hairspray star Nikki Blonsky and her father were arrested on assault charges following a brawl involving the family of America’s Next Top Model contestant Bianca Golden in a Caribbean airport, police said Friday.

The 19-year-old actress was released on bail, while her father, Carl Blonsky, remained in jail. Golden was also arrested and released on bail. Golden’s mother Elaine was reportedly hospitalized with serious injuries.

According to the Providenciales Police Department in the Turks and Caicos Islands, the fight erupted in the departure lounge of the Providenciales International Airport after everyone had gone through security.

“Things got out of hand in an argument over seats in the departure lounge, and several people were involved in an altercation,” a police source tells PEOPLE. “There were some injuries involved.”

Rumor has it that Golden asked the Blonsky’s to move their luggage so that Golden could sit down, the Blonsky’s refused, and mayhem ensued.

Francesca is sad that one of our own would be involved in such a mess.

However, the pertinent point for today is that, so far, Francesca has not seen any media outlets or blogs which, in reporting this story, point out Blonsky’s size. They simply report that she is an actress from Hairspray.

This is a very good sign, especially considering that the altercation was between a Big Actress and a Thin Model. Francesca shudders to think of the crass humor that could be traveling ’round the internet. It is also noteworthy, when one compares it to this report from the memoirs of Camryn Manheim:

Here is the definitive list of fat synonyms and fat euphemisms, all culled from reviews about me. These are from actual reviews. Many of these critics took upon themselves to alert people that I was fat, just in case they wouldn’t notice. And it’s obviously really important to these critics that people do notice.

:: list of 32 phrases::

Look, I don’t mind being described as fat . . . But I hope there are more interesting aspects to my performances, and I would hope in the future reviewers will focus on my acting and not my dimensions. The reason they don’t mention that Tom Cruise is 5’8″ in reviews is because it doesn’t matter. And I hope that some day, my weight will be regarded as equally irrelevant.

So, readers, the assignment for today is to direct traffic to online entertainment-news vendors who report on this incident without mentioning Bronsky’s size. Let us reward those who know that her weight is irrelevant! Include links in the comments!

xoxo

A good friend of mine recently brought my attention to an article in the NY Times…which I promptly didn’t get around to sharing for way too long. This morning I was reminded that I hadn’t used it yet, which was one of those horrible Homer Simpson moments in my life. No, really, I turned yellow with a 5 o’clock shadow and a pocket protector. This was not pretty. The pocket protector was by far the worst aspect.

Once I’d regained my more standard whiter shade of pale, I remembered to use my good intentions and talk about the July issue of Italian Vogue.

While most fashion models don’t look like me in that they are tall and…well…lots of things I’m just not, there is one way in which the vast majority of working models do look like me: they are white. Looking through the average fashion magazine, one sees few women of color. I’m not the only one who notices this fact.

Steven Meisel is one of the top fashion photographers today. He’s the sort of photographer who has the power to do as he pleases and the moxie to choose to do something considered daring in the fashion world: he has chosen all black models for the July issue of Italian Vogue.

This makes me happy. I would love to see the fashion world become more diverse, more welcoming to those outside the beauty ‘norm’ of the industry. Hell, I’d love to see an all Asian or all Latina issue of a mainstream fashion magazine…and then I’d love to see these women on the pages of the magazines when it’s not a stunt issue. I’d be thrilled to open up a magazine and see faces of every color of the rainbow looking back at me, being beautiful and well-groomed and superfantastic.

Meisel has chosen a gorgeous lineup for his issue, too. Iman, Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks (yes, in the same issue of the same magazine and not apparently harming one another in any way), Jourdan Dunn, Liya Kebede, Alek Wek…and the list goes on. But he only had trouble getting one model approved for the pages by editor Franca Sozzani: Toccara Jones.

That’s right, Toccara who competed on America’s Next Top Model. What was the beef? Is she not pretty? Yes, she is. Is she not photogenic? Yes, she is. Is she not a working model? Yes, she is. But she is one more thing: she is fat.

Actually, she’s not even what I’d call fat, but according to industry standards, she’s elephantine.

That’s the other sort of face I’d like to see looking out at me from magazines, the one that matches mine no matter the color and configuration of features. We’d all like to see ourselves looking out from those pages, or at least someone we could be.

Mr. Meisel was clearly perplexed by the difficulties he encountered in casting Ms. Jones:

“I wanted to say something about weight, and I’m never allowed to do that,” he said. “I met Toccara and thought, she’s beautiful. What’s the deal with her? She’s great and she’s sexy.”

In the end, he did get his way. Toccara Jones was cast and photographed for the magazine. I’m thrilled about that.

And Mr. Meisel? If you ever shoot an all-fat issue of a fashion magazine, I will definitely buy a copy.

We Big Girls are legion, and we are awesome, and we are beautiful, and we would like to be seen, too.

The other day, msn Finance published an article about the potential savings to the US economy if nobody were fat. Never mind that the author’s math doesn’t add up on any level. After all, she assumes that a) every fat person eats lots of Big Macs and b) no thin person does. She also assumes that McDonalds would survive – nay, would continue to be profitable – if instead of selling Big Macs they sold ‘little steamed chicken snacks.’

In this Thintopia suggested by the author, diabetes and heart disease would nearly disappear. What’s more, apparently nothing else would kill us! Insurance rates would plummet and more money would go into preventative care…or:

That sounds good, but Roland Sturm, a senior economist for Rand in Santa Monica, Calif., doubts anyone would pay for preventive care. More likely, he says, some doctors would be on the street. “They could drive cabs,” he suggests.

Of course, no thin person has diabetes or heart disease or suffers a stroke, right? And nothing else would come along to kill us because if we would just stop being fat, clearly we would live forever. And people are only willing to pay for catastrophic health care over preventative or maintenance care because…well, we’re not entirely sure why, but since an economist said it, it must be true.

And of course, in this new nirvana, nobody would ever take a sick day because we all know that every time someone calls in sick at work it’s because of fat…not colds, flu, sprained ankles, or a host of other ills that befall everyone, fat or thin. Our dependance on foriegn oil would evaporate as our trim little bums would lessen the strain on our SUVs and airplanes could fly with less fuel making up for the difficulty of getting a bunch of lardly butts into the skies. Farmers could stop growing so many sugar beets which we bad fat people have been demanding and start growing lots of vegetables which fat people never, ever eat, of course. Because clothing manufacturers wouldn’t have to cover such a wide range of body sizes, they could – and of course would! – concentrate on covering a much wider range of body types. Yes, it is because I need a size larger than the average store carries on a regular basis that some deserving thin person is unable to find pants that fit both her hips and her waist properly. I stand utterly chagrined in the face of such logic.

Really, if we would all just stop being fat, everyone would ride unicorns and find true love, tra la.
The thing that worries me most, however, is not the way the math doesn’t add up, but the fact that our very individual human lives, whether fat or thin, are treated as a matter of pure economics. Our value as people does not diminish because we need health care or transportation or food. Our value depends so much more on what we bring to the people around us. So what have some fat people in history brought to our world that’s worth having? What could a fat person possible have accomplished? Well, here are a couple examples I think are worth considering.

(more…)

Oh, my goodness! Can you believe this blog has been going for 9 months? It feels like yesterday that Plumcake and I dove into the wonderful, wide world of plus-size clothing here at the Manolo network. And what a superfantastic trip it has been!

This means that it has been 9 months since Francesca reminded you to consider carefully whether it is time for you to replace your bras. Much can happen in 9 months! If a baby can gestate in 9 months, that is plenty of time for your bras to stretch out, sag, and gap. It is enough time for you to gain or lose a few pounds and now need a new size.

So, start shopping!

If you are racktastic and need a hard-to-find bra size, Francesca recommends that you start with BiggerBras.com and Bravissimo.

Of course there is also the Cacique line at Lane Bryant, the ONEsexy bra collection at Avenue, and the full-figure department at Frederick’s of Hollywood! Mmmm!

And now — hat tip to our internet friend Carol for bringing this to our attention — Big Singer Jill Scott has created a bra brand of her own in partnership with Ashley Stewart. The “Butterfly Bra” not only has wide, gel-filled shoulder straps but also two support bands in the back and — Francesca’s favorite feature — underwires filled with gel. No more underwires cutting into the delicate flesh of the Big Girl! Hallelujah!

Take care of those girls!

xoxo