Glossed Over

There's Nothing Sexy About InStyle's "Look Better Naked"

Many many years ago, I briefly dated a guy who was, well, not particularly nice.  Watching a movie at his place one afternoon, he leaned in for a kiss. (Mom and Dad, avert your eyes here.) Matters progressed, he tugged the hem of my t-shirt over my head, and then he rolled his eyes at my basic beige bra. “Don’t you have any sexy underwear?” he asked.

All I could think was: Dude, I’m taking my clothes off for you. How is that not enough?

Therein lies the problem with February’s glut of lingerie and look-better-naked stories: they’re so focused on an artificial construct of romance that they miss the point. If, as magazines often say, feeling sexy means feeling comfortable in your own skin, then endless articles exhorting the virtues of self-tanners, lacy knickers, and styling products aren't exactly conducive to developing that self-confidence.

And that’s what makes InStyle’s “10 Ways to Look Better Naked” so utterly ludicrous. Among their suggestions:

• Weight loss

Got 30 minutes and $85 to spend on detoxifying salts? Great!

We shed 3 inches of water weight and felt thinner for about 48 hours.

And you can keep those inches off, too, provided you don’t do anything outlandish like, say, eat or drink. People don’t typically go to romantic restaurants on Valentine’s Day, do they?

• Jewelry

The magazine suggests highlighting your back, which it calls “a very sexy region of the body.” The best way to do that? With an $850 gemstone-studded lariat chain, obviously. Without pricey jewels pointing the way, how would a man know what to focus on?

• Home décor

“Amber casts skin in a warm, rosy glow,” says [interior designer Ron] Woodson, who suggests placing a red-hued bulb in bedside lamps and painting your ceiling a barely there shade of peach or pink to enhance the effect.

Painting the ceiling? Painting the ceiling! That seems excessively vain, but at least they didn’t suggest installing a mirror up there.

Of course, the article also covers the usual territory of depilation, exfoliation, and cosmetic trickery to hide any traces of humanity blemishes and bruises. But unless you’re disrobing for a sculptor who’ll immortalize your every detail in marble, isn’t this overkill? There’s probably a 3,000-word essay here about treating women like objects and the deleterious effects of porn and how the media tries to define our sexuality, but I’ll just leave it at this:

If you’re naked and your partner dares frown at your white ceiling or a stray stretch mark, your relationship is way beyond InStyle’s help. Also, you’re probably dating my ex-boyfriend.

Lowest Common Denominator: Cosmopolitan, February

6: Minutes per day needed to “score a slammin’ bod,” according to the cover

Infinite: The disingenuousness of a Cover Girl ad suggesting readers “go for beauty on your own terms” by eschewing department-store cosmetics for the Cover Girl brand. Thanks, Cover Girl, for telling me what my own terms are! Apparently my terms involve buying slightly less expensive stuff I don’t need.

25: Cosmopolitan’s “magic age” for getting married, as cited on page 36

100: In “Beauty: His Picks,” number of men surveyed about whether nail decals are “fun and flirty” or “too over-the-top”

Apparently zero: Number of women surveyed for the same article about whether they care what 100 random men think of their fingernails

1950s: Decade whose gender stereotypes Cosmo rejects in “Are You Turning Your Boyfriend Into a Girlie Man?”—right before suggesting steak and football are inherently masculine and salad, Cat Power, and French movies are inextricably feminine.

101: Page of the aforementioned article that made my head explode. The culprit phrase? “Do more gender-neutral activities with your man (see our “Manly Date Ideas,” at right)…” Since when does “gender-neutral” default to “manly”?

1: Appallingly evocative reference to an erect penis as a “giant breakfast sausage” on page 105. Sorry, I couldn’t let that one pass!

9: Of the thirteen men Cosmo’s crowned its “Fun Fearless Males 2010,” the number who are actors (The other four are a musician, an athlete, a TV producer, and Dr. Oz.)

“Almost 200” and “up to 300”: The supposedly shocking calorie counts in bottled teas and wrap sandwiches, according to “These Healthy Foods Can Make You Fat”

Endless: Stories in this issue devoted to pleasing men sexually (“4 Traits Men Find Irresistible,” “99 Hot New Sex Tips...In 20 Words or Less,” “Tap In to Your Seductive Powers,” “The One Time He Always Wants You”)

4 apiece: Pages devoted to articles about fertility and inter-racial couples

3: Pages devoted to a story about the decline of the thong

2: Pages dedicated to police officer Ally Jacobs, whose investigative work led to the arrest of Jaycee Dugard's captor

Huge: My—and, I’m sure, your—relief at learning one needn’t get a job at Cosmopolitan to achieve the same success with men that its staffers enjoy, because the magazine found 13 of them to give us the inside scoop. Lessons offered by current and former magazine staffers in “Engaged at Cosmo!” include these gems: cook his favorite dishes, avoid discussing marriage, don’t freak out when he plays Guitar Hero (like someone would?), and always wear the latest nail polish.

Zip: Actual eroticism in this month’s edition of “Red Hot Reads,” as exemplified by this decidedly unsexy sentence: “It felt so good that coherent thought was behind her, but she did realize it had never been like this with any other man before.”

Vogue Takes Its Turn in the Lara Stone Sideshow

I haven’t read an issue of Vogue in three months, but good news for me: nothing’s changed! In her January “Letter from the Editor,” Anna Wintour demonstrates the magazine’s remarkably persistent distance from the real world.

[French fashion designer Sophie Theallet] is a very rare creature in fashion these days. As [Lanvin designer Alber] Elbaz told the crowd, it is too often the case these days that people elect to work in style industries in pursuit of fame, not skills. “Why does every girl over five feet tall and age thirteen want to be a model?” he asked. “Why don’t they ever want to be a seamstress?”

Yeah! Why be the beautiful woman who wears the clothes when you could be the poorly paid one who makes them?

Never a magazine to back down from a completely indefensible viewpoint, the issue also includes an article detailing the struggles of size-four model Lara Stone. Which is great, you know, because Vogue clearly offers an unbiased perspective on the fashion industry’s obsession with preternatural thinness. (Sigh.)

From “Hello, Gorgeous”:

It’s hard to say which came first—the superskinny model or the size 0 sample. Either way, the trend has been tough on both the models, who find it nearly impossible to maintain that body type past the age of seventeen, and the magazines that want to show clothes on models who aren’t painfully thin.

Vogue not being one of those magazines, obviously.

Designers who use the superskinny girls defend the trend, saying clothes hang better on a coat hanger. But the opposite is also true—some clothes look better on bodies with “boobs,” which is why Stone’s career has flourished.

What a charming pair of sentences! Slender women's bodies are compared to coat hangers, the fashion industry's ideal woman is actually an inanimate object, and we learn clothes aren't designed for humans. Oh, and for those who don't happen to resemble a hanger, guess what! One model who is still way thinner than most of us is enough to represent us! Who says the fashion industry doesn't love women?

Stone doesn’t blame fashion for her problems. “I like my job,” she says… She doesn’t even blame the designers—“That is their aesthetic. It’s not for me to say whether it’s right or wrong.”

Well, I’ll say it. It is wrong to call a woman fat because she doesn’t resemble a wire hanger. Also wrong? Not blaming designers. Canonizing a coat hanger as the ideal female form isn't the worst thing they could do, but it's probably illegal to make clothes out of asbestos.

By the way, those difficulties writer Rebecca Johnson refers to? They include a recent stint in rehab for alcohol abuse—a habit that began when Stone tried drinking to lose weight. In a sentence so callous that I can't quite believe it's in print, Johnson says this:

Her problems—if you can even call them that—recall the poet Rilke's definition of fame as the collection of misunderstandings that gather around a person.

Got that? Stone's drinking was reminiscent of Rilke, and not, say, indicative of a destructive atmosphere in the fashion world.

“People still tell me I’m fat, but when I look in the mirror, that’s not what I see.”

Maybe Wintour and Elbaz are on to something: why would a woman aspire to be a model when this is how models are treated?

Stone’s recent surge in prominence may well lead to a positive shift in attitudes—but until then, it’s disheartening to see her continually treated like a size-four sideshow.  Her shape makes her an anomaly in the fashion world, but by focusing on her "fat" size-four body, magazines seem to overlook that she's an anomaly in the real world, too.

Related: What W Really Thinks About Women's Bodies

The 5 Ways Glamour Undermines Its Size-12 Self-Acceptance Message

There’s been quite a bit of discussion recently about the photo of model Lizzi Miller in September’s Glamour. See, Lizzi has something that rarely appears in fashion glossies: a non-concave stomach. So readers—in the apparent joy of seeing a body that remotely resembles their own in a magazine—have sent letter after letter of praise to Glamour HQ.

In her blog, editor-in-chief Cindi Leive mentions Glamour’s “commitment to celebrating all kinds of beauty,” which makes me wonder whether she even reads her own magazine. I’ll give credit where credit is due: this photo and the overwhelming response give me a little hope. But a photo—even this photo—isn’t enough.

Here’s why:

1.    Lizzi Miller’s photo appears in a story called “What Everyone But You Sees About Your Body,” which is ostensibly promoting body confidence. But why illustrate this piece with a plus-size model? The implication is that larger women are the ones who need this advice, because, you know, skinny females apparently pop out of the womb bursting with self-confidence.

2.    Leive describes Miller as a non-supermodel whose body is “wait for it…normal,” as if she (Leive) has nothing to do with the models who populate every other page of the magazine. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it isn’t readers who clamor for a parade of sylphs month after month.

3.    The hubbub over Miller doesn’t just mean they’ve done something positive. It means Glamour is failing its readers. If a single photo has generated such a response, then the magazine isn’t regularly depicting the women it purportedly speaks to. A picture of a plus-size model shouldn’t be a favor to readers. It should be a frequent way of representing them—not to the exclusion of slender women, but alongside and equal with them.

4.    If I could say one word to Cindi Leive, it would be this: “context.” A plus-size model in Glamour is great. Loving your body is fantastic. But the positive message is diluted by the rest of this issue’s content: a “Health Answers, Please!” column about weight-loss supplements, a feature called “Beware the 1,140-Calorie Breakfast,” the usual spate of super-thin models, and in “Your Instant Whole-Body Makeover,” the warning that poor posture “can even make you look like you’ve gained a few pounds.” The horror! Here’s a thought: Stop fear-mongering about fat and maybe there wouldn’t be a need for articles about self-acceptance. Which brings me to...

5.    Leive’s blog post completely fails to acknowledge that Glamour is complicit in this situation. You know why it’s refreshing to see a model who looks like Miller? Because we so rarely see anyone who looks like her in any fashion magazine. Sure, Glamour is leagues beyond Vogue or W in terms of body-type diversity, but that’s damning with faint praise.   

What do you think?

Related: What W Really Thinks About Women’s Bodies

InStyle Makeover Needs a Makeover of Its Own

As I discovered this weekend, InStyle Makeover and Taco Bell are remarkably similar. They're both cheap and require a very strong gag reflex. 

What was it about this special issue that was so hard to swallow? Was it the $600 cosmetic case? The fact that some no-doubt-underpaid editorial assistant had to conceptualize the ways in which a purse can camouflage a “flawed” figure? Or that every woman made over in this issue didn’t really need a makeover?

Impossible beauty standards, you win again! And we lose.

Take a look at Vanessa Hudgens, who was given an “undone” makeover. This was the result:

According to InStyle, this is a “polished no-makeup look.” Don’t you roll out of bed sporting fake eyelashes and the exact right shade of nude lipstick? With a professional hairstylist and makeup artist at your disposal, this natural look is so easy to achieve!

A few pages later, “Plump + Go” features someone who actually isn’t wearing makeup. That’s because she’s a model preparing to be injected with four different substances—Botox, Perlane, Cosmoderm, and Restylane. So there are at least four reasons none of us look anything like the women we see in magazines.

Continuing the trend of making over people who don’t really need making over, “6 Weeks to Slim” pairs two magazine staffers with trainers who, naturally, impose ultra-strict quasi-scientific edicts. Do they lose weight? Yes. Did they need to lose it in the first place? Nope! Both have BMIs within the normal range.

Admittedly, the BMI is a flawed calculation. Fine. But this depiction of two slim women getting slimmer alongside a “Dress Yourself Thin” coverline and a food diary from manicurist Ji Baek, whose diet consists largely of champagne—it all sends a powerful message about our bodies.

It says that our bodies aren’t ours—they’re open for public comment. That they don’t exist for our pleasure or strength but instead that they are a source of shame. That starvation and sacrifice are the path to self-satisfaction.

As long as our bodies and faces belong not to us but to an ever-changing, ever-more-impossible standard, women will be going to war with themselves.

Wouldn’t it be a pleasant surprise to see a magazine emphasize being healthy and strong instead of slender and young? Wouldn’t it be great to see a magazine stop referring to “boyish” figures, as if those women somehow aren’t female enough, and stop altogether ignoring larger women? Wouldn't it be a positive change to see a fashion spread focus on flattery instead of camouflage?

Absolutely. But I’m not holding my breath. To accomplish anything other than selling insecurity, InStyle Makeover would need a makeover of its own.

What W Really Thinks About Women's Bodies

This is model Lara Stone on the cover of the August issue of W.

 

This is Lara Stone modeling inside that same issue.

And this is Lara Stone in her underwear, also from the August issue.

These are some of the terms used to describe Lara Stone in the editor's letter and the article “Fashion’s It Girl”:

• “a little meat on her bones” (W’s deputy editor, Julie L. Belcove)
• “voluptuous frame”  (the article’s author, Sarah Haight)
• “a mix of a warrior and Brigitte Bardot” (designer Isabel Marant)
• “her body…a refreshing aesthetic shift away from the prepubescent boy figure that has lately dominated fashion” (Haight)
• “big, bad and beautiful” (photographer Bruce Weber)

And this is how Lara Stone describes her own body:

“A lot of people say it’s nice to see someone who won’t break in half when you touch them,” she says… “But I am still a woman and a person, and if you’re compared and confronted with your colleagues, and they’re all half your size, you think, F---, I’m really fat! And then on other days, I’m like, Oh, I’m not that bad.”

“Not that bad”? A woman who makes money posing in her underwear is “not that bad”?

The fashion industry—and, in turn, the fashion media—have such a warped concept of slimness that a model like Lara Stone is so much larger than her contemporaries that they feel the need to explain her presence. If Stone’s body is such an outlier, what does that say about the rest of us?

Worse, the magazine saw fit to issue the disclaimer that Stone “is, it should be noted, a very lithe five foot ten.” Why, yes, do note that! As if there’s the slightest chance someone is going to look at these photos and think Stone needs to, like, slow down on the Cheetos.

The article mentions multiple times that her look is a modeling-world anomaly. And that gives editors, photographers, and designers the chance to explain why they hired her—which is really just a whole lot of self-congratulatory masturbation about how open-minded they are, like they have to somehow justify (to us!) casting a woman whose ribs don't poke out above her cleavage. Yeah, they’re real body-image mavericks. What a revolution. If they truly believed that Stone’s shape is so enviable, why the need for justification? If the “meat on her bones” is so praiseworthy, why don’t we see more models with “meat”?

Her figure may be in vogue, but the rest of us have to live with our bodies no matter what magazines deem the ideal shape of the moment. Perhaps the industry could stop treating Stone like a freakshow long enough to realize how very hypocritical it is to praise her curves and how insulting it is to us when they’re compelled to rationalize featuring a woman with hips and a bustline. We have those. We get it.

Clearly, the fashion industry doesn’t.

Related: The Language of Magazines: Is “Curvy” Completely Meaningless?

Lucky Thinks You Have the Body of a Model

The cover of Lucky’s August issue claims it features “The Best Jeans for Your Body—Ever!”

Unfortunately, it looks like the footnote to that coverline was omitted in what was surely a grievous copyediting error. After perusing the fashion spread in question, I’m certain that cover line should have read:

The Best Jeans for Your Body—Ever*

*if you are 5’11” and weigh 125 pounds

See, unlike most features that bill themselves as suggesting clothes “for your body” and therefore present at least a token range of body types, Lucky depicts only a slender model, head and torso cropped out of the frame, wearing the featured jeans. Ah, yes, it's the time-honored fashion magazine tradition of publishing cover lines that bear no resemblance to the article! 

So if you are very tall and your thighs don’t touch, you’re in luck! Not under contract with Ford Models? Lucky does not acknowledge your existence. Or your need for well-fitting pants. 

To be fair, the feature does include plenty of advice about how jeans should fit for optimum flattery. But is there a pair of snug pink straight-legs on earth that would look good on anyone but a model? (That's an actual example from page 115.)

While “The Lucky Guide to Denim” lacks body-type diversity, it does feature a range of denim trends. Some highlights:

Studded: Lucky calls these “unapologetically punky” and “a bit dangerous”—and nothing says punky and dangerous like $460 Just Cavalli denim!

Shredded: Ooh, jeans that are “all-out destroyed” are “rebellious.” What exactly are bleached and slashed jeans rebelling against? Pants that are, like, intact?

Dark, clean skinny: Says Lucky, these are the “ultimate day-to-night jean.” And they certainly are, if you work at a fashion magazine and jeans constitute appropriate office attire.

At the end of the guide, there's a promotion for an online video offering “tips on how to look great in jeans.” But why bother watching it? According to this feature, looking fantastic is simple. Just be genetically blessed and let the pants do the rest!

A Rant: Miley Cyrus, Thigh-High Boots, and the Fetishization of Youth

Oh no! Miley Cyrus looks vaguely mature in the August edition of Elle—cue the outrage!

At 16, is Miley too young to be posing “provocatively,” as she does in this feature? Riddle me this,  universe: what is the proper age to don thigh-high boots and a push-up bra in a national publication? Can you imagine the uproar if Elle had photographed an older woman, say Helen Mirren or Judi Dench, in similar attire?

Our culture has fetishized youth. We worship it. Women undergo surgery and inject toxins into their faces to maintain lineless complexions. They wax their nether regions to a pre-pubescent smoothness. Youth and attractiveness are coveted and prized to an insane extent, but a young woman wearing form-fitting black clothes—you know, being youthful and sexy—is somehow crossing a line? Forgive me if I find Botox a far more insidious force than Hannah Montana’s cleavage. 

Sure, these photos aren’t exactly congruent with the squeaky-clean way she’s normally packaged. But so what? Is it so shocking that, at 16, she might want to be portrayed in the media in a more adult fashion? After all, she's been working full-time for years. In many ways, she is an adult. And didn’t we all spend significant portions of our teen years trying really desperately to be viewed as grown-ups?

I'd much rather see a teen star wearing sophisticated clothes in an attempt to look sexy and mature than following that time-honored tradition of posing in lingerie for Maxim. (Hello, double standard! Where are the pictures of Justin Timberlake stripping to prove his readiness to move beyond boy bands?)

All that said, I'm troubled by the pervasive conflation of sexuality with maturity. Can't we have the "not a kid anymore" story without the requisite trying-hard-to-be-risqué photo shoot? (Sorry, Elle. It's just so predictable.) Even so, the downright hypocrisy of a society that so treasures sex appeal but condemns women for cultivating it is far more damaging than a glimpse of Miley’s decolletage ever will be.

Naked Celebrities Show Their "Spirit" in Allure

So, let’s discuss the nude women in the May issue of Allure, shall we? It’s a photo spread called “The Naked Truth,” and it does not start off well:

Five celebrities shed their clothes and reveal not just their bodies, but also their  confidence and spirit.

Indeed. There’s no better way to demonstrate self-esteem than by posing nude in a national magazine!

I’m sure taking the pictures was a life-affirming experience for all involved, but sadly, these photos do not provide the same effect for the rest of us. If I have to look like Eliza Dushku (who has three—three—personal trainers) to feel good about my body, I never will.

Also, how does getting naked reveal their “spirit”? Despite what some people (okay, men) I’ve met seem to believe, my personality does not reside inside my bra, and I’d think a women’s magazine would be more interested in fighting that notion than in furthering it. Or have I not mastered Allure’s little lesson in confidence?

“Just being female means we know how to hide our flaws—but this is a nowhere-to-hide kind of thing,” said actress Sharon Leal of Limelight. “It’s about embracing your body and feeling good.”

We may know how to “hide our flaws,” but that knowledge is gender-related only in that being a woman means our “flaws” are continually pointed out.

And why does “embracing your body” require taking your clothes off? The answer:

 “It’s important to do this to show young girls that beauty doesn’t have to be perfect,” said Padma Lakshmi, host of Top Chef.

Lakshmi has a scar on her arm from a childhood car accident, so she would know! I understand her concern, and it’s a valid one. But instead of teaching young girls that beauty doesn’t have to be perfect, maybe we should teach them to value themselves and others for something other than beauty. Maybe we should teach them that they can love their bodies without the need to prove it by disrobing. Conflating self-confidence with nude portraiture only reinforces the idea that our value lies in our appearance and sexuality.

Of course, confidence is inextricably linked with how we feel about our bodies. But I fail to see how painstakingly lit, gratuitously retouched pictures promote self-acceptance for anyone other than the women in the photos. Surely there is something more notable about each of these celebrities than the precision of her bikini wax.

One of the actresses pictured, Lynn Collins, told Allure that “It’s hard not to focus on vanity in this industry, because such a large part of it is about how you look.”  If only the magazine had realized that such an undue emphasis on appearance exists not just in Hollywood—and that photo shoots like this only exacerbate the problem. Next time Allure wants to demonstrate an actress’ “confidence and spirit,” a simple interview will suffice.

Bazaar: You'd Like Yourself More If You Stopped Eating Solid Food

The April issue of Bazaar contains the usual assortment of ludicrously priced fashion tagged as “investments” and “smart buys.” But because much has been written about that—and, sadly, because it’s no longer surprising—I’m going to mostly ignore Derek Blasberg’s off-putting article, which helpfully explains that the super-rich can still handily afford couture. I’m so happy for them! Also, the reference to John Galliano’s “let-them-eat-cake euphoria”? Charming.

Instead, let’s talk about “Tracy Anderson Muscles In,” a profile of the woman Bazaar dubs a “fitness guru” and I would call a “fitness guru, but only if you consider magazines’ absurd ideas about women’s bodies to be absolute gospel.”

This past summer, she tinkered with a drastic 14-drink-a-day liquid menu she may also bring to market. There have been times in her life when she has all but subsisted on the kale lemonade… Her prodigious eating habits shock and awe: the 30 cookies she ate in a row one weekend, an entire apple pie.

14 drinks a day? And that’s it? There’s some shock for you. My awe is reserved for the fact that a woman whose diet vacillates between liquid fasts and junk food binges is considered a fitness expert.

Tracy has an opinion about everyone else’s trendy regimens: Spinning, and its gift of a manly butt and legs. Pilates, which regrettably builds out the stomach. Weights for women? You might as well shoot steroids.

Silly me, I thought it was a penis that made one’s lower body manly! And the problem with weight training? Apparently, we women are supposed to be delicate and small—or, in Anderson's parlance, “teeny-tiny dancer types” with “teeny tiny” muscles. (Never mind that, like, every magazine ever has explained why lifting weights is beneficial and how to do so without adding unwanted bulk.)

“Gwyneth wants to look great naked too. I mean, so does Madonna.”…The method turns out to be less about vanity than self-esteem.

But is wanting to look good naked vanity or self-esteem? Does it even matter? Claiming that potentially harmful fitness regimens—like, say, refraining from actual food—are about self-esteem doesn’t instantly render them innocuous, and unilaterally imposing the "teeny tiny" standard isn’t particularly conducive to anyone's self-esteem.

In fact, I’d say it’s precisely the opposite. If the only way to be “teeny tiny” is to subsist on 14 glasses of lemonade a day, well, I’d rather eat cake.