The Flemish Painter Peter Paul Ruben, had an eye for the larger lady, and portrayed the ideal women in his paintings as full-figured, with soft curvy lines. Feminine beauty is expressed, in as many shapes, and sizes as exist, in the world. Attraction to that feminine beauty, should be enhanced, by good design, and style, in clothing.
Plus Size Designers have embraced the concept that feminine beauty should not be narrowly defined.
Runway models that have graced the stages of the world, in the last 50 years, have been limited to a very slender, and petite range of female body type.
One of the oddities of the world, is that arbitrary decisions about what is acceptable tend, go gain velocity, and agreement, over time. Often, the agreement is considered to, in some way, embody truth. So if the Models on the runway stage are all tall and slender, there is apparent agreement, that tall, and slender is the embodiment of feminine beauty. Not true!
When we look around, it is empirically obvious, that tall slender women are not the norm in the world. Despite clothing designers apparent consensus regarding feminine ideals, larger more robust women, continue to turn our heads in public and fill our lives with joy and excitement.
Agreement regarding any topic, does not define truth about it. Agreement just creates acceptance, and social norms. Social norms historically, have been fickle guidelines at best, and in some circumstances social agreement has resulted in horrible declines into human ugliness.
If the decision to define feminine beauty as tall and slender was arbitrary, then it is currently urgent that clothing designers continue to address the ever-changing landscape of the feminine form by paying more attention to the plus size women. Plus size designers are out there and it is good to see them coming more into the mainstream in print media, on-line and on TV.
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