I’m teetering on the edge of whether Christina Hendricks (Joan in Mad Men) is just in need of dropping a few pounds or whether she is just a gorgeous curvy and voluptuous girl.
This recent cover on New York magazine lends to a bad angle but the pictures of a photoshoot in Page Six magazine (US) are absolutely stunning:
And the stick she got for her dress she wore to the Golden Globes was just pointless.
However as lovely as Christina looks, it has been found that larger women or plus-size models just do not cut it for advertising clothes.
A study by Arizona State University discovered after conducting research that women are not encouraged to buy clothes after seeing them on models of a similar size to themselves.
‘We found that overweight consumers demonstrated lower self-esteem, and therefore less enthusiasm about buying products, after exposure to ANY size models in ads,’ said Naomi Mandel, a marketing professor who led the study, ‘And, normal-weight consumers experienced lower self-esteem after exposure to heavy models….than after exposure to moderately thin models.’
So even though the average size of women in the UK is 14-16 we prefer to look at models that are at the most a size 10 or below. Dove used ‘real women’ in their ads and people shouted that it was about time, but for something like the care of skin it doesn’t really make a difference about the size of the woman:
As much as I am all for real women if I was to pick between a plus size and ‘normal’ model then it would be the latter:
I would be much more likely to buy a dress or any other item of clothing if it appeared on a girl showing how the designer meant it to be.
I know looking at someone like Rosie Huntington-Whiteley or Lara Stone would give me aspirations to get fit and tone up and make me want to go to the gym.
