Fashion for life: Flesh flash! Curves on the catwalk

                                     
    Don’t tell a soul, but I have spent the greater part of my adult life gazing at women’s bodies. Naked, sometimes. And all – sigh – in the interests of my art. As we all know, when it comes to fashion, clothes are only ever but one part of the equation. Until they come to rest upon flesh, they are mere material, flaccid and remote and quite literally disembodied. It is the figure within that lends any clothing its form, charm and energy.

    Over the years, that body has evolved with the times. Just as 60s pop now seems quaint, just as the sounds of the 70s seem distant and droll, Cheap Handbags so the body of the age perfectly reflects its era. The gawky, pigeon-toed frame housed in its minidress and go-go boots… The longer, moony figure in a cheesecloth maxi skirt, bra-less and ethereal… The toned, bronzed, capable woman with her thrusting approach to tailoring, takeovers and hailing taxis, which typified the go-get-’em 80s…

    Lately, of course, we’ve all been grappling with the curious phenomenon of the size zero body. (Philosophically, I have always found the look pitiful. That we should come to this, I’d tut, turning the pages of another magazine with its bizarre collection of bones on show: clattering frames draped in silks and accompanied by a huge new handbag, all skin and brass buckles, as if to point up the lack of corporeal body actually holding it.) Some magazine editors and commentators huffed and puffed and tried to blow the look down, Louis Vuitton Handbags but it remained in vogue for years. For ages, heaven help us, the pinnacle of feminine achievement was to boast a bum like a seven-year-old boy.

The latest models look (gulp) like they’ve had a decent breakfast: all curve and verve and cream-puff flesh oozing along the catwalk

    But now, green shoots. Really. Run your eye over some of the latest offerings from the top modelling agencies and fashion houses, and you may notice a subtle but seismic shift. Check out Laetitia Casta, Bar Refaeli and Coco Rocha modelling for Louis Vuitton recently; all curve and verve and cream-puff flesh, oozing along the catwalk to the soundtrack from 50s movie And God Created Woman. Wholesale Handbags Look at Doutzen Kroes, Alessandra Ambrosio and Miranda Kerr on the runway at Prada, each one a Victoria’s Secret Angel, each one the bearer of proper breasts, decent behinds and a lovely bit of wobble in their walk. And who can have missed Lara Stone, the Bardot of the mo? She has 35-inch hips! Now, I recognise that we’re not talking Nellie the Elephant here. But it’s a tad wider than the industry norm. And that, my friends, is a coup.

    These women look (gulp) like women. They seem to have had (steady yourself) a decent breakfast. They look (sharp intake of breath) Replica Handbags a little bit like we do. Sure, they have faces like Botticelli heroines and skin like fresh apricots and green cat’s eyes, and whatever else a model needs to cause a stir out there. But they have bottoms and breasts. Not enormous ones (we’re not going bananas here), but a proper handful. Do not doubt it: this is game-changing. It is something to applaud and celebrate. Hey! I fancy a doughnut. Anyone else?