How Kate Winslet and I are 3 different dress sizes at once!
THERE were some very opposing views of actress Kate Winslet at t he Toronto Film Festival this week. Never one to shy away from controversy, some of her film role choices since her Titanic heyday have been loved and loathed with equal ferocity.
But, curiously, on monday night it was not her acting that divided opinion, but her rather splendid figure, clad in a Badgley mischka figure-hugging ball gown, as those on two sides of the catwalk were afforded a completely different Kate to the gawpers across the way.
For Kate, like me, seems to have one of those bodies that appears to occupy three parts of the dress-size spectrum: a size 12 from the front, a size 10 from the side and a size 14 from behind.
Women like us have flat tummies and slim waists when standing in front or to the side of you, yet a peek behind our backs reveals a very different story. Look at Kate’s confident, sultry smoulder as she meets the camera head-on. This is a woman fully aware that we’re seeing her best side.
She knows she has this angle covered. A peek at her rear, however, and you could be looking at someone else. And, I admit, it gave me more than a little smug satisfaction to see that even a superstar like Kate has not quite learned how to master the Curse of the Curvy Bottom.
Think about it. everyone knows how to suck in a little extra belly, but have you ever tried to ‘hold in’ your bottom? It’s rarely pretty, resulting in a pained expression at best, and buttocks resembling Walnut Whips at worst. yet these ‘flipside figures’ are a common predicament for healthy, wholesome mothers of a certain age — bellies can be kept in check, but your poor old bottom just cannot keep up.
Unlike Kate, I have the luxury of vetting all photographs of myself before publication. Trust me, any taken from behind without my knowledge never make it off the camera’s memory card.
SIZE 14 is a very generous assessment of my rear view. I’ve often flicked through holiday snaps and wondered, ‘Who is the poor owner of that matronly backside in the background?’ — only to find out with horror that it is me. Give me some warning — and time to suck in my stomach — however, and I can easily pose for a front or side-view shot I’m happy to share with the world. And I have a long-held theory as to why this is so.
A mother-of-three fast approaching her 40th birthday, Kate has watched her stomach swell and shrink with every pregnancy. Her last, with son Bear, was only 21 months ago. Like most women, she will be gauging how fast she’s snapping back by looking at her tum in the mirror. I have no doubt she was on the floor doing stomach crunches as soon as she was back home with baby Bear, her hospital case barely unpacked.
Her bottom, I reckon, will have remained largely ignored — unless she’s under the tutelage of a personal trainer or is a life-long gym-goer, which she has always professed she is not. And nor am I.
I think Kate’s body responds to exercise in the same way as my own. We’re similar builds and, just short of 5 ft 7 in, matching heights. We have athletic, broad shoulders and the sort of figures that would ‘never make the royal Ballet’ (as I was told as a young girl, lumbering my way through dance classes). But our physiques would undoubtedly come i n handy shifting a bit of scenery.
For women like us, excess weight gathers around the rump. I remember once, when I was a young reporter, a policeman came into work asking for me. He’d forgotten my name so ran through my physical attributes with the receptionist — blonde hair, blue eyes, clumpy boots, brusque manner. But it was only when he came to describe my ‘bit of a bottom’ that she twigged it was me.
Throughout my adult life, abdominal fat has been so much easier to shift than that which gathers around the buttocks.
I’ve never even had to resort to horrible sit-ups: I just suck in my stomach muscles and walk for 30 minutes a day. This can be slotted
around working and, now aged 48, I have maintained a relatively flat stomach for the 15 years since my youngest child was born.
To get rid of my curvy bottom, t hough, I would need to make some serious effort in t he f orm of ghastly, repetitive squats and lunges, which are essential for keeping a backside in tip-top condition. In my view, only the mos t sanctimonious and dedicated of the female species can be bothered to put that effort into looking good.
Bear in mind, also, the buttocks are home to the body’s largest muscle, the gluteus maximus. When it is not subjected to regular weight training, it shrinks at the depressing rate of 1 per cent a year after the age of 30. And as perkiness packs its bags, flabbiness moves in and stages a siege.
So it gives me great pride and satisfaction to know that Kate Winslet finds herself in the same body category as me.
And my advice to her? Don’t worry about your generous derriere at all. When you look that good from the front, you really shouldn’t fret about what is going on behind.
Just keep an eye out for cameras, never bend down in public unless absolutely necessary and, most importantly, keep posing and smiling.
You’ll look absolutely amazing and no one will give a hoot about the larger, lumpier ‘you’ lurking in your shadow.