Glossy Talk: Elle editor's glossy world view

Glossy Talk: The glossy looking-glass is not coloured rose (so wake up and smell the Starbucks)

US ELLE editor Roberta Myers recently appeared on the Today show, generally telling it like it is in the world of fashion, pop culture and gloss, proving that those glossy goggles are still firmly in place (and that women's magazine editors are absolutely – powerlessly? – beholden to the fashion industry):

"It’s fashion’s job to sort of reject what’s going on every six months or so. Which is to say, we’ve had the glamazons — the tall skinny models — for a really long time. What was so great about this season – and so interesting this season – was that the Louis Vuitton show closed the show with a 47-year-old Elle Macpherson. She is not a skinny girl. And at Prada we saw Victoria's Secret models on the runway. This is really a new trend. And, importantly, the clothes are actually built for these kinds of curvy women. This is what's going on in fashion – this is what's stylish right now... When Marc Jacobs sends a Victoria's Secret model down the runway, it's worth noting, and it's important, because he is one of the most influential designers...

"An interesting thing we write about in our body issue is that average women – we did a study, there was a big study – are not actually inspired to look at women who look like them. In fact, they respond more to women who are a little bit above average... Seeing someone who looks like her doesn't actually send her out and make her go shopping. There is something always aspirational; when you look at television, when you look at movies. I think the fact that the culture is shifting a little bit to women who look a little more realistic... Look, the average woman is 5'3" and weighs 160 pounds [72kgs]; you're not going to see a lot of that on the runways or in the movies or in general in the creation of popular culture."

Scary thing is, as Myer notes, as soon as fashion gets tired of 'curvier' girls, like Laetitia Casta, it will return to the skinnier girls – because fashion has the attention span of a two-year-old, and is largely still dictated by men, who have no such curves.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel