Note | Nudity Photographer Remi Rebillard has known a few curvy women in his life and shares La dolce Vita !! with us.
Looking at these delicious images of Haley with P-models, it’s clear why women like Anita Elberg in ‘La Dolce Vita’ or contemporary women like Kate Winslet and Monica Bellucci are Remi’s references for the shoot. Davide’ Calcinai with www.artist-management.net did Haley’s hair and makeup.
Monica Bellucci, a woman Remi knew in Paris with Karin, says this about curvy women:
“A curvy woman is not any less beautiful ~ It’s a different type of beauty, and men like it.”
We know Belucci’s observation is valid in the vast majority of male/female relationships but perhaps not so much in today’s aristocracy and definitely not in the fashion industry, where even Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani agrees that women have been downsized from the 1990s and the luscious glow of a ripe peach is no longer a sign of beauty.
We’ve lived in this conversation for about two years now, with changes that are minimal to my eye.
An AOC woman reader I only know only as Ellen wrote last week:
I find it interesting that the media increasingly pushes a view of women that goes completely against the rules of attraction: which is one based upon signs of health and usually fertility. The ancient part of the brain is geared to finding a partner who will thrive - and for the majority that includes the ability to conceive or be around long enough to rear children. A skeletal woman with no body fat tells our subconscious that she is unable to fulfill this role: she is most likely unable to conceive (indeed periods stop when you starve yourself) and if she does manage it, the child or the mother is likely to suffer during pregnancy or childbirth. She is unlikely to be able to breastfeed either which is not essential of course but does have benefits for mother and child. I am not talking about naturally thin women, but the size zeros who can only get to that size by depriving themselves of essential calories. Fake boobs can mask this reality to some extent, but the jutting bones will always signify illness.
In a curve ball that was a bit of a knock-out punch for me, Ellen continued, postulating that some feminist women — gay and straight — have collaborated with designers in desensualizing the 90s supermodels, seeking to promote women as more than fertile baby-makers.
Now that is a new angle in a question that has gone nowhere for months! Ellen has me thinking.
The $64,000 Question
In a blog post on My Body, My Image, writer Theresa Ruth Howard responded to Andrej Pejic’s recent Push Up Bra ad by saying: