Every few months or so for a little over a year now, the latest edition of some random magazine has shown up in my mailbox. These magazines show up unannounced, and at first I think someone else’s mail was accidentally delivered to me, but upon further inspection, I see that my name and address are on the label. These magazines vary in subject matter, and they usually arrive for about three to six months and then are followed up with an “if you enjoyed the magazine why not keep it coming for x amount of dollars” envelope. Needless to say, Old Man Savastano just tosses those and never subscribes.
And while I toss those subscription solicitations, in my endless quest to keep my mind occupied and pass the time while I am riding my stationary bike, I have started looking through these random free magazines while peddling away on the seat of my infernal chore.
I was once a pretty big sports guy, back when I actually played a multitude of sports which my parents felt would keep me occupied enough to keep me out of trouble, so the Sports Illustrated magazine, which has shown up weekly for about the past three months now, is usually an interesting skim. While I don’t follow sports like I used to, I do inherently catch enough sports news floating on the wind for the content of the magazine to be none too surprising. But other than S.I., magazine stalwart TIME, and a few other random titles, every single other magazine has been some type of fashion or fitness magazine.
And I noticed something interesting when going through these fashion and fitness magazines. Apparently, there are the beginnings of somewhat of a self-proclaimed revolution in the fashion industry these days – people are at least talking about the fact that while all of the depictions of women in these magazines are of rail thin teenage girls, most women in America are neither teenagers, rail thin, or fashion models. I, for one, applaud this dialog and am happy to see this change. While I do not have a daughter of my own, I completely agree with the notion that our media and advertising definitely have a very narrow minded view of what they believe women are ‘supposed’ to look like, and I would hate to see any young girl growing up with the notion that the women in these magazines are what she is ‘supposed’ to look like. Especially since we all know there is a lot of Photoshopping that goes on behind the scenes, right? Talk about creating something impossible to achieve in real life.
So, good job fashion industry...at least you are trying. But, in the end, to quote an umpire who you might find in S.I., I call ‘em like I see ‘em, and when going through these magazines, I really feel like not much has changed despite the industry buzz about this so-called size revolution. If you thumb through one of these magazines, you will definitely find a page in there with a highly cropped picture of Ashley Graham in a very covering one-piece bathing suit that shows her from her waist to the top of her head with a headline that reads “Great Style Has No Size”, but the entire rest of the 198-page magazine is nothing but size zeros, ones and maybe…maybe some twos.
If you are the size of the girls in the magazine, then hey, more power to you, I am definitely not trying to knock you, but I feel that if fashion is going to conduct what it is calling a ‘revolution’ and then pat itself on the back for including women of all ages, shapes and sizes, these fashion magazines that have been forced into my mailbox definitely did not get the message. I think this so-called ‘revolution’ is comprised of that typical American fabrication that if we do something 0.005% of the time, we are creating real change.
So, sorry, fashion industry, I’m not ready to pat you on the back yet…You still have some work to do.
Picture by Alexandra Maria via Pexels
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