and another thing.....

But I can count the ribs through your t-shirt,

You spend your life doing sit-ups, that must hurt, 

You don't drink or smoke or hang around in bars, 

I know it's easy to be smug, 

But I can find me a stranger to hug, 

And here on the shelf it's closer to the stars. 

Tommy Lassoo 

Something really pissed me off yesterday. I knew I shouldn't have read the article when I saw the headline, but my felt compelled, strangely drawn to the content that lay below.I knew it was a mistake as I read it and  every line down the bile bubbled more and more inside me, yet I kept reading. No friends, this wasn't like the time I accidentally glanced at the letters page in the Daily Express. This was an article from The Observer from a few months ago. The headline was: 

Elle magazine breaks fashion's last taboo: plus-size models on the cover

Oh where to start?

For one thing, fashion's last taboo - I very much think not. 

Let's have a little look at the cover shall we? 

Oh wow. Let's take a moment to celebrate how far we've come. Whoopy whoopy do. We've steamed through fashions last taboo. We've made it mum. Let's close feminism down, we clearly don't need it any more. Look above kids, there's a bunch of vacuous women with dead eyes showing their slightly larger than normal stomachs on the front cover of Elle magazine. 

You mean I didn't need to go to university? I didn't need to read all those pesky books and have all those pesky discussions with those pesky people? Bah. I could have just done a dead eyed stare and stand there in my bra in the name of fashion like all those skinny girls before me. 

Last taboo? Fashion's last taboo? What was the first taboo? Oh I know, having to show more than just skinny white people - so they signed up a few skinny black and asian people. And now, what? twenty years on we're at the last taboo? What about disability? What about reality? What about showing people who aren't dead eyed morons? 

I don't respect fashion. Okay so that might be stating the obvious but I will happily campaign against a system where, to my view, any artistic credibility is completely overruled by the wrongness it perpetuates and it's overwhelming presence in society which promotes sweatshop labour; eating disorders and a string of Primark clones with no sense of who they really are. But you know what really pisses me off? well, let's have a look at exhibit b: 

"Fat mummies sit there in front of the television with their chip 

packets and say skinny models are ugly," Lagerfeld told Focus

 magazine. He said fashion was about "dreams and illusions", 

not reality

Karl Lagerfeld - if you're reading this, which of course you are,

 I want to fight you. I want to eat a grab bag of salt and vinegar

 Walkers and then I'm going to sit on your skinny, orange body and then I'm going to eat you. I'm going to wolf you down like beef jerky and you will taste like creosote and shit. Fine Lagerfeld, perpetuate your dreams and illusions, just don't do it everywhere I fucking look, on every billboard and television show and classroom in the country. Don't make it so I can't pick up a magazine or newspaper without your dreams poking me in the eye. I have dreams too - I dream that a giant lizard is going to rip your leathery skin off and feast upon your screaming bloody body, thing is I don't control all the billboards on Holloway road so I can't shove images of it wherever anyone happens to look. 

I don't hate style - style is an important and wonderful thing. To be able to express yourself through your clothes is a freedom that people only seem to be able to dabble in these days and I think that it's a damn shame. I do hate the fashion industry and the article I read yesterday just hammered home to me exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing. 

I'm not going to change the world. I'm not going to change a thing except for releasing a few horrible clothes items from the hell that they were originally designed for. But at least I'm doing something to counter the all permeating shit that rises from that world. At least I'm doing something. 

Wow I'm off to eat some fig rolls and calm down. xxxx