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Monday, March 28, 2011
What does "curvy" mean to you?
I like to pop in on The Sartorialist every now and then, and was pleased to see a couple of gorgeous photos of Angelika, in Milan. She has strong & somewhat curvaceous legs. They're certainly more shapely than what is commonly seen in the style blogger pantheon. Scott Schuman described the shape of her legs as "sturdy but beautiful" which set off a firestorm of commentary (416 comments as I post this) as to what "curvy" means. It makes for an interesting read.
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3 comments:
It's easy to see why discussions of women's bodies get heated so quickly. Call curves "womanly" and you invalidate the experiences of thin, more straight-up-and-down women everywhere. Call a slender woman "sturdy" or curvaceous, and you highlight our society's skewed perceptions of women's bodies (and piss off us more voluptuous gals).
I think a lot of the heat in The Sartorialist post comes from the fact that he felt he had to qualify this woman's photo with an extra descriptor at all, when realistically she appears to fall in the smaller end of the average range of body types in our culture. Curvy can be a loaded term for many: a point of pride, identity, or derision.
What's your definition of curvy?
Hi Elizabeth,
What an eloquent statement! Much more balanced than many of the from-the-hip blasts filling The Sartorialist's comment section. I agree with you completely about the source of the disgruntlement.
Schuman usually reserves his qualifying adjectives for the sartorial choices. He travels in the highest echelons of the fashion world and has photographic access to the extremely style-consious and mostly stick-thin denizens of this world, so we all bumble along enjoying his photos while accepting his (and our) immersion in this disproportionately tiny-bodied population. He is sparing with words, and his audience is vast & diverse in background, so every word is dissected and in this case "sturdy" and "curvy" were pounced upon. As for what curvy means to me, I'm finding that to be a difficult question to wrestle with. I can tell you that I do not use it as a synonym for 'unhealthily overweight' and was surprised to find that this was in common usage. Will share more insight as it comes, and this may even develop into exploratory posts on the Trove.
~MJ
Totally agree with your analysis here. And I also never hear "curvy" as a negative in any of my circles, so it's a little jarring to here it used in a pejorative way. It does bring to light the many problematic and ambiguous ways we use to define "curves" and what they mean to us personally. Looking forward to some exploratory posts!
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