photo Tuesday (and how)

(OKAY, IT'S THURSDAY. Naughty.)

If you learn nothing else today, you will learn (if you didn't know already) how amazing open-work stockings look on fat girls.

Volup 2 is a new magazine from ex-pat American plus-sized model and photographer, Velvet d'Amour. As far as I can tell she had a hand in photographing and styling almost every shoot in all 300+ pages of Volup 2, which she describes as:

A bilingual English/French online quarterly magazine showcasing diverse beauty, with an emphasis on curvy women, and exploring the generosity of Mind, Body and Spirit.

D'Amour became famous when she was a 2006 Gaultier runway model and her continuing interest in fashion shows. That is, Volup 2 is a fashion mag--sort of. Fashion, clothes, bodies, makeup, locales. Femmey femme.

I really enjoyed seeing the eye of a fashion photographer brought to bear on fat bodies, and how fat bodies wear clothes, without the usual need to sculpt them with perspective into vague, largish constructions supporting acceptably unfat faces. Her camera is really looking at these plump--fat--thick--bodies. She really wants so know how they look in the clothes they're wearing. It's fun. I don't totally know how I feel about the naked black dude in one of the shoots, but in general I really loved this mag. Nice to see older women and a woman in a wheelchair, too. Often NSFW in delicious ways.

Stay Fatty and Carry On!

T-shirts for sale! White tees go to 5x; dark tees to 3x. Store at Zazzle to come shortly (white tees there go up to 6x).

ahhhhh

What a lovely surprise, while reading a garden-variety health-related piece in a mainstream magazine (February 2012 issue of Martha Stewart Living), this one concerning "The Truth Behind 10 Cholesterol Myths," to come upon a fact that sounded uniquely size-positive for the context. Although really what was so refreshing about it was that it was just information. Not presented as part of any system of thinking about size, not there for any other reason except to sell magazines (basically):

One of the very most worrisome things about size prejudice in the health media is that people DON'T GET THE RIGHT INFORMATION. They are prepped to not get it, or see it, by bigotry. Critics of size acceptance say that fat people are just looking for reasons to "excuse" being fat, or make it okay (let's sidebar that argument for the moment), but seriously--what about the thin person with really high cholesterol who gets a sense it doesn't matter due to the way the issue is sold in the media? Or doesn't check it at all, because they think they don't have to--that only the fatties have heart problems?

We go through this over and over with heart disease in America--everyone's all baffled and surprised when (for instance) a thin, long-time runner like David Letterman needs heart surgery despite major hereditary risks. We're pretty sure we can diagnose disease from looking at people. But that denies the complexities--and complications--of the human body. Whatever size it is.

Information is good. Good job, MStew. Very refreshing!