BBW

After some thought and a whole lot of "Googling" for ideas, I came up with the idea of looking at 'big beautiful women'. I thought it would be interesting to look into how these women are perceived. These are some of my favourite images that I came across whilst researching...

I found these images incredible, as they are very mainstream fashion style shoots, yet with women of an average dress size. To me these women don't seem overweight at all and are absolutely beautiful. The fact that they have to be put into a category of "plus size" seems ridiculous.

Plus size models are not put based on weight or on dress size, but mainly on hip measurements. I know this from my own experience in the modelling industry, and am pretty sure that although I am not overweight and am a very average weight and dress size for my height, I would be seen as plus size as my hips are very wide.
I can not understand how somebodys bone structure can determine if they are seen as overweight within the world of popular culture, but it happens and is an unfortunate truth.

Due to my strong feelings on this, I thought it would be very interesting to use women from this category of the modelling world, as although they may be more beautiful or attractive than some of the starving catwalk models we see, they are held back by their label of "plus size". This label can often be seen as a negative thing by women due to the pressures of the media to be a certain size or weight and so I do not think that the industry should separate plus size models to those who are underweight. I just think that models should be models and that should be the end of it. (going on a bit of a rant here)

To wrap it up, I think that the restrictions of being categorised as a plus size model reflect the restrictions of a cyborg. It also helps demonstrate my point of how media controls our expectations of women, as even though these women are being celebrated for their size, they are still photographed in very sexual poses, often naked, as if they are trying to prove a point that they can be sexually desirable too.