Not too long ago, I complained about the way this model was photoshopped.
Now I’d like to complain that she appears to be starving right before our eyes. I’m sure she is naturally thin, blah blah blah, but this isn’t natural or normal. Doesn’t anyone over at RevolveClothing have eyes in their head? I feel so remorseful for criticizing her butt!
In my fantasy of humanity, someone would be sure to take Doll Girl aside, and urge her to get help. But no, they’re putting her in these awful clothes and snapping pictures.
While everyone goes on about full-figured models and Crystal Renn, in real life women are still trying to get smaller and smaller until they disappear. Very sad.
Looking at her does NOT make me want to buy clothes.
Gross.
she looks like the girl from the reality show ‘The City’. What can i do for women to change how they think? when i can’t change how i think? yes, fuller figured women are great and we cheer them but why isn’t it changing my train of thought? how can we change the idea that being a normal weight is ok?
on another note, being that thin – i wonder if it’s a bonus not getting your period anymore?
Poor thing. It seems like most women say they’d never want to be that thin, but there must be a reason models keep getting thinner and thinner.
It wouldn’t be so bad if she didn’t look so unappealing (to my eyes anyway)
Naturally thin people are as normal as naturally curvy folk (of which I am one)
but to set unhealthy looking people as models just makes me sad.
I’ve ranted before on another blog about one half of the world who don’t know where their next meal is coming from and the other half promoting the look you get when you haven’t got enough to eat – I really do want the world to stop so I can get off.
Sam, great point about how being thin is used both in fashion magazines and in aid charity ads on tv. It’s mental.
This girl doesn’t look appealing. She looks like a skeleton with skin and is REALLY pissed off about it. There’s thin, and then there’s skin and bones. Aside from it being a gross dress, seeing a half-dead, badly fake-tanned girl who looks as angry as I am trying to make me buy it is the worst piece of advertising I’ve come across in a while.
Poor thing
I don’t think it’s very fair to call her “gross”, as another commenter did – she’s obviously in the throes of an eating disorder. It IS gross, though, for Revolve to promote this look and use it to sell clothes, and for all magazines and fashion arbitrators to unendingly, persistently and without deviation to firmly posit this as the “norm”. I don’t believe that eating disorders are entirely cultural (I think genetics play a large part), but seeing this kind of thing every single day, with no variation, fucks with my already screwed up body image. Plus it’s just horrible, horrible exploitation and enabling of this poor girl and the disease.
I think because the later argument that you bring up is actually taking place (being plus size is acceptable but not accepted) it drives women of lower self esteem to push themselves to extremes. This is a very sad picture. I too wish Revolve would/could do something.
Her head is wider than her waist!! Don’t they see it? She certainly doesn’t. Even though there is a push for size equality, I think that people with body dysmorphic disorder will continue to do this even if it’s now OK to be a little more “womanly”. Very sad. Maybe we should all write to Revolve’s customer service to complain. If they see if it might affect their business, maybe they will intervene.
I’ve read that women want to be a size 8 or smaller, men prefer women around size 12, the average size is 14.
Obviously something’s out of whack, and something should be done.
The biggest problem might be that most fashion designers prefer women to be clothes hangers rather than women. Many argue that, as women take up more “space:” in society, politics, the workplace, the parts of society that are male-driven (!) maneuver to make them smaller. Your sentence “in real life women are still trying to get smaller and smaller until they disappear” expresses it beautifully, and breaks my heart.
Meanwhile, could somebody please make that girl a sandwich?
I struggle with this image. On the one hand she looks too thin and painfully so.
On the other hand, I have a few friends and also my husband who spent the best part of their teens and early twenties fending off accusations of eating disorders because they were naturally as thin and even thinner than this model.
In some ways it must be hard to live your life as a naturally very skinny person and have to fend off accusations of anorexia etc. But it must be even harder to live your life with an eating disorder. I’m not going to judge her or her body, but I hope that if she does have an eating disorder she can find help soon.
She’s thin. If you look on the website she looks thin or very thin depending on the photie. However, when she is more clothed – she just looks like your average woman-selling-a-frock slim chick. Let’s not get judgemental about the girl – save it for the ho-hum clothes and an industry that only uses one body type. I don’t doubt that there would be just as much disgust if the model in question had a fat-roll or belly.
“Real life women are still trying to get smaller and smaller until they disappear.”
So true and then again
“Real life women are still trying to get younger looking and smaller until they fit in.”
or
“Older real life women are still trying to get beige-r and beige-r until they disappear (or just hurry-up and die so we can buy your vintage wardrobe).”
Face it – we’re never ‘enough’ – too many people are making too much money out of keeping us that way.
Is this supposed to be aspirational? The only thing the photo inspires me to do is feed people.
I understand scrawny – I was a scrawny kid myself. But the “too big” head & obvious muscle loss make this NOT GOOD. Time for some talk therapy & second helpings.
@ sam: “one half of the world who don’t know where their next meal is coming from and the other half promoting the look you get when you haven’t got enough to eat — I really do want the world to stop so I can get off.”
CO-SIGN.
I just wonder when they’re going to come up with eye-socket expansion/eyeball implants so that women can FINALLY becoming living BRATZ dolls. Looks like this one’s on her way!
Ughh she has a lizard neck 🙁
This makes me sad.
I’m co-co-signing on Sam
When I see bodies that are thinner than my frame will ever allow me to be (I have a runner’s ribcage and birthin’ hips), I console myself:
“I could bench press her, no problem.”
If she is indeed disordered instead of naturally thin and frail (she looks like she might be light-of-build but also in need of a few extra pounds to me), I hope she gets the help she needs, but her employers should know by now that this look isn’t going to sell clothes to the average consumer.
Esme – This model looks more emaciated than the last time I looked at her..her bones are more visible. No way is it just a natural skinniness. I wish it were.
I feel horrible for this girl. Her body will not continue to suport herself if she continues to lose weight at a rate like that. Eating disorders are terrifying things, I hope she can get some help.
I don’t think we can speculate as to whether or not someone has an eating disorder based solely on them being thin. Unless it is glaringly obvious like this http://bit.ly/ There really is such a thing as naturally skinny, just like there is naturally fat. Maybe she does have an eating disorder? Who knows.
What IS plainly obvious though, is that Revolve Clothing has horrible judgement in using that particular body type to sell their clothes. It’s just doesn’t look healthy. That’s not selling me anything.
It’s always difficult to find a (healthy) point of view on this subject. Health-wise, all extremes are bad and it would be fair to skinny people to be criticized next to obese ones. Culturally, we are played out by well conditioned doubts that we don’t own anymore. Here, on this blog, we heard many stories about the frustrating clash of proposed, nurtured beauty ideal and our own physical nature. Every time this issue is discussed, this conflict appears to be ongoing struggle, but at least, we’re fighting the battle.
Unlike the Tragic Fashion Boy, this image worries me because somebody decided that a too skinny, unhappy looking girl can be used as marketing tool to sell a product. TFB was more selling himself and that didn’t reflect on my self image, I could take a distance and look at the pictures as they are, If there is no diversity and only an ultra thin model is used as example, it has a completely different ambition and is therefor much more bothersome. On Vogue Italia Curvy section you can read the article about “+” size models and the conclusion was that if there would be more clothes for curvy figure, there might be more curvy models. Being (still) a fashion designer I can take that as criticism and make steps toward the change.
I can not blame HER, but the person who put her there.
In case that she has a self image issue, I feel sorry for her, though, as I do feel for every person which personal struggle is abused as a good selling point.
God, what the hell, Revolve Clothing? This girl does not look at all well.
This can’t be real.
Honeypqants – Hahahahahahaha, awful but true!
Don’t Forget The Y – Your link doesn’t work for me, but I have no trouble speculating about eating disorders. It’s not likr labeling someone a racist or child molester for godsake. I had serious anorexa in my teens so perhaps it takes one to know one. Eating disorders are no cause for shame, but rather a situation deserving of compassion. I don’t think we should look at a starving person and pretend we don’t see what we see.
Naturally thin – perhaps, but unlikely. Poor thing. Watched 15 min. of Tyra and her Next American Top Model. Both fashion and reality TV seem to be industries heavily based on cruelty.
Cricket9 – Astute and disturbing observation.
I used to look like that, maybe even worse. No one is NATURALLY that thin
Eating disorder or medical concern, whatever, naturally its not happening
She looks like shes dying and whomever is allowing her to continue to be
a model is as sick as she is. How is this real life? This shit makes me angry
but really, no one can do anything about it, it’s the way the world is at the moment
I hope she’ll be ok, I know what its like..I have no sympathy for her, but I understand
Oh yeah, I’m also pretty sure it is that chick from The City
She had a cry about kelly cutrone telling her she is to thin
and became really defensive being accused of having an eating disorder
then of course, they showed her shopping for food, repeating to her boyfriend
about how healthy and un eating disordered she is. Either way, shes much thinner
now than in that episode
Crikey.
I wish people would stop paying other people to waste away like this.
Elle – I didn’t actually call her gross, I called the dress gross, and never fear, I did note the irony in the use of the word. I can’t resist stuff like that. I’m a sick individual.
She’s so thin that she looks OLD. I wish women would realize that a bit of flesh is actually so flattering (and sexy) and nothing ages you more than a bony face and sunken cheeks and hollow eyes.
But more importantly, it’s just healthier to not be this skinny.
This trend (of eating disordered women) used to be strictly a Western phenomenon but is now becoming prevalent in urban areas in Africa (!!!!) and asia. Just depressing.
The model is Ali from the MTV show “The City”, which I am sad to say I am totally addicted to, as it fuels my fascination with ridiculous superficial fashion drama and snotty “It Girl” attitudes:
http://www.mtv.com/shows/the-city/season_1/cast_member.jhtml?personalityId=10660
She looks terrible…so sad.
I know that anorexia and other eating disorders are pathological rather than logical and that they are almost always accompanied by body dysmorphia with little insight. At the same time, being that thin ages someone both aesthetically and literally–the organs, emotions, everything suffers. Shame on catalogues and magazines for perpetuating this. Some media talking heads vitriollically dismiss the burden of proof lying with the media. How can they?
Crystal Renn is ridiculous. “Oh when I’m fat, fat is beautiful. But when I can leave it alone…” I cry Uncle Tom.
i remember kelly cutrone told ali she was too skinny then. she looks even worse now. poor thing looks ill.
There is a very messed up editor at the bottom of this, and they both need help. xx
I think I just found the worst one yet:
http://www.revolveclothing.com/DisplayProduct2.jsp?product=BCB-WD47&c=BCBGMAXAZRIA
Cripes, Revolve! She doesn’t even look human. It looks even worse here, on the thumbnail shoppers click to access the product:
http://67.215.227.233/images/p/n/c/BCB-WD47_V1.jpg
Buh-fucking-zarre.
i emailed revolve the other day about her. her name is allie crandell. a lot of people have left complaints about her in place of actual reviews on the website. revolve sent me and email back stating that they are aware of her image, and are working with her and her agent to get her weight up to a healthy level. who knows how hard they are trying… but she’s under contract so they can’t just drop her from the site.
anon – Thank you for the heads up. I hope the complaints there aren’t mean. She must have no idea how unhealthy she looks.
This isn’t even the worst of them! I shop on revolve often and just the other day I showed my husband one of her most recent photos and he was floored. Ill leave out his actual commentary as i dont want to be cruel but definitely didn’t find it attractive in the least. She looked much thinner than the one above if that is even possible. I had to do a search to see if I was alone on this because it’s just bothered me for so long and recently it’s gotten so much worse I felt like maybe I should contact revolve. I’m so glad that others have spoken up, maybe she will get some help if that is what she needs. At least it they’ll know how their customers feel about it, and maybe they will use this as an opportunity to move towards promoting healthy, realistic body images.
It is absurd that most of the people leaving replies to this article and calling the model “Unhealthy” and “Gross” are people who are naturally bigger. I am naturally thin and have a build very similar to that of the model above. I do not have an eating disorder, on the contrary I eat very healthy and exercise on a regular basis. Every time I go to the doctor to get a check-up, my health is exceptional. I did not choose to be this way, and I actually had problems trying to gain weight to avoid idiots like the ones leaving comments from telling me stuff like “Why are you so thin?” and “You look like an anorexic”. As i grew older I learned to embrace my body and be glad that I wasn’t fat and wasn’t going to die from a heart attack. I understand where a lot of people come from to critique skinny people since there is a lot of people out there who force their body to look extra thin by not eating. On the other hand there is a lot of people out there, like myself, who are actually “naturally skinny” and whose health is perfectly fine. Before you call anyone “Gross” and “Unhealthy” please go check your own health and see how healthy you are as compared to the unhealthy skinny people. I have kids and have a wonderful life and family and my husband embraces my gorgeous body. Whether you’re naturally fat or skinny, embrace your body and live healthy, calling people (fat or skinny) gross to raise your own self esteem means you do not have a good outlook in life and that is not the way to excuse yourself from being fat or skinny.
She is beautiful