Love-hate.
I'm sooo happy to be in all fashion classes this quarter. It's all relevant, and hey, it's all at one building that's a 5min walk away. It's so depressing, however, to be in fashion sketching class and to feel this pressure to draw my women thinner, thinner, with longer and longer and impossibly longer legs. Intense pressure. It's a requirement. My grade depends on whether or not I have adequately stylized my figures to what is essentially industry standard. I draw incredibly thin women with impossibly long legs and am told that my legs need to be still longer and the head a bit larger.
This is where it all starts. Fashion magazines aren't the origin. Fashion models chosen for their ability and/or willingness to maintain incredibly low body mass for their height aren't it either. No, it starts at this level. Designs start on drawings. They are drawn on figures that are 9-13 "heads" tall. The average woman is perhaps seven heads tall. Supermodels such as Alek Wek, famous for her incredibly long legs, are about eight heads tall.
Design starts on these impossible figures. Women as close to the impossible are selected and are expected to cultivate eating disorders if necessary to stay as close to this as possible. They walk the runways, get photographed. The standard they set are only reflections of the standards to which I am and designers and students generally are expected to draw.
This is where it all starts. Fashion magazines aren't the origin. Fashion models chosen for their ability and/or willingness to maintain incredibly low body mass for their height aren't it either. No, it starts at this level. Designs start on drawings. They are drawn on figures that are 9-13 "heads" tall. The average woman is perhaps seven heads tall. Supermodels such as Alek Wek, famous for her incredibly long legs, are about eight heads tall.
Design starts on these impossible figures. Women as close to the impossible are selected and are expected to cultivate eating disorders if necessary to stay as close to this as possible. They walk the runways, get photographed. The standard they set are only reflections of the standards to which I am and designers and students generally are expected to draw.