Friday, August 05, 2005

Bare Flesh

I love going to lunch on my own with a book, a magazine or a newspaper; today was the only day this week that I have been able to do so. One of the things I read this lunchtime was AA Gill’s column from The Sunday Times Style magazine, which had me quietly chuckling to myself over a grilled vegetable salad. Gill was lamenting global warming because the English do not know how to dress for it.

Frankly, I don’t give a toss if half a dozen Pacific islands become an underwater adventure destination for sharks (serves the islanders right for eating strangers), and I don’t much care if Greece becomes part of a new, improved Aegean. But I do mind having to look at the English attempting the sweaty equation of heat, going out, Sunday and “my wardrobe”.

What is it that makes English bodies so spectacularly repellent in the daylight? It isn’t
simply the clammy, adipose, maggoty-white flesh, with its zits and lesions and dry, scrofulous craters. It’s the distribution that so noisomely offends. The softly curdled lumps that hang like fungus on beech trees, the swaying underarms, the double nuggets of cheesy flob behind the knees, the exhausted, stretched, who-cares haggis of gut, the shuddering, horrified backsides, with their wrinkled, slippery clefts and creases, the thighs pitted like rain on cold sand – all of it shaped and moulded by waistbands and straps that were hopeful three years and 4in past.

My friends have heard me on the subject many times - dress for your body. It is one of Max’s pet peeves that so many people walk around in public, or even serve me drinks, showing bits of their bodies that would best be left covered forever. It is not at all that I have a perfect body; in fact I am quite secure in saying that I do not. The thing is that I also do not insist on showing bits of flesh that absolutely no one wants to see. I am tired of bare midriffs and thongs crawling out of trousers that are cut too low. I am sick of seeing waists bulging out over belts that are too low and too tight. Show a bit of cleavage, sure, and perhaps fleeting glimpses of skin elsewhere, but please leave the rest up to the imagination.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

MM,

I 100% agree with you!!! You would think that with all of the chick magazines out there - why is there such a lack of understanding of what makes clothing flattering on your body (if it looks like cottage cheese and wobbles more than jello cover it up!!)...sure you can be a rebel and say "fuck it" but really - do we need to see granny's thong? no.

The question is - why is there a lack of cool looking, flattering clothing for those of us without stick bodies?? Why??? Try being 182cm tall with big boobs and find a summer top with enough material to cover up both puppies...eeek!

MM - we need to open a store together!!! hahahaha

Devastatin' Dave said...

Tits Malone,

Free the puppies!!!

MM,

I've heard this site is good.
http://www.whaletail.com/

Anonymous said...

Yeah Tits....Set them free!!! Come on....send us a pic of the 'ladies' running free!!!

Ludovic said...

problem is plenty of people don't have an imagination

Anonymous said...

Hello! Finally someone agrees with me. I rarely go to Downtown Montreal because between my friend Allison and I, "spot the fashion victim" game just got boring. I don't understand. you don't need a lot of money to dress cool, nice and appropriatly. Hello...Winners, GAP Sales... Granted I have a pretty slim tall body but I don't wear that revealing crap let alone a skirt that ends at my butt (though I have the legs for something like that). I was talking to Tits Malone in Toronto over a budvar beer about how I find it much more sexy for a woman to be covered, the librarian look as it leaves mystery.
Unfortunatly, we have assholes like Briteny Spears, Jessica Simpson and that skank Paris Hilton that the young ones or people look up to.
I think we need to get royalty over here cause the celebs make me vomit. They have all this money and still can't dress well. They are so uncultured and just dumb. They throw money around but don't really appreciate or savour culture.
Luckly MM TM and myself Chatsy Malone, all different body types yet we are three hot ladies.
My budvar is calling me.