Now Victoria is weighing in on body size
VICTORIA BECKHAM made headlines this week with her comment that wanting to look really thin is now old-fashioned. To put this into context, she was discussing her new range of VB shapewear. Slip into a piece of VB Body and voila – yours is a flat stomach, a peachy derriere and a streamlined but curvy silhouette.
Victoria, pictured, herself is extremely slender and maintains a rigorous approach to diet and exercise. She looks great and perfectly healthy. But does she really think that thin is old-fashioned? I doubt it.
Victoria would not previously have expressed such a view because it’s only recently that fashion, or at least some fashion, has decided to embrace curves.
Not Gucci, Chanel or Louis Vuitton, whose models are still super-thin, but the bigbottomed fashion of Kardashianland, which is arguably the more influential.
All those years back, in 2009, Kate Moss made news with the phrase ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, which, it turns out, was a version of the less pithy ‘nothing tastes as good as being thin feels’ from a book by American writer Elizabeth Berg.
Berg did not make headlines but Kate did, because when it comes to body size, celebrity opinions count.
The strange thing is that it’s blindingly obvious that being neither too thin nor too fat is a good idea, but this never makes the news.
Despite rising obesity figures there is a whole movement encouraging women to accept being heavier than can possibly be healthy.
Meanwhile, perfectly healthy women are obsessed with losing that extra 7lb. But I wish it were different. If only women as famous as Kate and Victoria could tell the vast majority: ‘Don’t worry what size you are, it’s more important to focus on what you know and do.’
That’s what would be really helpful.
Though whether it would be considered news is, of course, another matter.
Kissing goodbye to extravagant hellos
THIS weekend I’ve been invited to two big parties. I can’t remember when that was last the case. Tents on the lawn, women in party frocks, men in pale jackets. Possibly Pimm’s? It’s positively nostalgic.
Returning to a normal social life is wonderful post-pandemic and all the more so for having lost it for so long. But it will also be improved by no longer feeling we need to hug everyone we come across.
I’ve always hated the whole double-kissing thing and if there’s an upside to the past few years, it is that we can be more restrained in our greetings without looking rude.
I’m planning to finesse the Bill Clinton approach. No not that one… but the hand clapped on a person’s shoulder with steady eye contact. It’s a comradely manoeuvre and it seemed to work brilliantly for him so why not give it a go?