This week a celebrity magazine (oh, all right,
Grazia) published an “actual size” picture of the seat of Victoria Beckham’s new David Bitton jeans (I know, I’ve never heard of him either but apparently they’re all the rage with the WAGs). She has a 23in waist.
It seems hard to believe, but a spokesperson for Bitton has confirmed it: “Posh’s stylist called the sales team at David Bitton and they sent her three sizes: 23, 24, 25. She chose the 23 to keep as it fitted her the best. They had those jeans specially made for her as they don’t normally go below a size 24.” Victoria Beckham’s spokeswoman, Jo Milloy, was not available for comment.
Twenty-three inches. As it happens, exactly the same circumference as my thigh. Now I wouldn’t for one moment suggest that all women should aspire to equally Teutonic measurements, but 23 inches (58.5cm) is very few indeed for a part of the body that, if my rudimentary knowledge of biology serves, is expected to house ovaries, a womb, a liver and a digestive tract.
In Gap, 23in is the waist size for a seven-year-old child. My three-year-old’s middle measures not far off 18in and she is not porky. A colleague’s rangy 11-year-old daughter was recently measured for her school uniform and was found to have a 26in waist.
We called in a pair of David Bitton jeans in a size 24 (they didn’t have the 23). When measured, they in fact turned out to have a circumference of 26in. That wasn’t too surprising — designers have always sought to flatter their customers’ egos with so-called “vanity sizing”: a size 12 that is more of a 14, and so on. A pair of Marks & Spencer Per Una size 10 jeans, for example, turned out to have a waist measurement of 32in, which is more than you would expect.
Nevertheless, even disregarding anomalies in sizing, the fact remains that the size 24s were rejected by Victoria as being too big, which means that she is, by any standards, very thin indeed.
Granted, she has always been petite. But even the slenderest of women would have a great deal of trouble fitting into a UK size 2 after having given birth to three children. It is no wonder, then, that there has been so much speculation about whether she suffers from an eating disorder. Nothing has ever been confirmed and, indeed, allegations have always been met with vigorous denials. Nevertheless, she is the poster girl of choice for many subscribers to pro-anorexia websites (disturbing cyber-pockets where girls exchange “thinspirational” tips and worse), making her a source of continual speculation.
Who knows if Mrs Beckham really does have a problem, or whether she just has one of those metabolisms (this is, of course, entirely possible. I have a friend who remains extremely thin despite a genuine fondness for fried ham and ice-cream. She eats roughly four times as much as me and is roughly four dress sizes smaller).
Dr Dee Dawson, the head of Rhodes Farm, a clinic that specialises in treating young people with eating disorders, believes that she can see signs of muscle wastage on Mrs B’s upper arms and thighs. But, if nothing else, Posh is lucky enough to live at a time when awareness of eating disorders is high, and if she or her family feel that she needs help, she will have no trouble finding it.
But there is no doubt that this apparent “concern” for her wellbeing has another, more pernicious, side. Because what makes certain sections of the media throw up their hands in mock horror also, on a more sinister level, provides female readers with a degree of titillation that most would be reluctant to acknowledge — a fantasy to which all women, young or old, fat or thin, will at some point in their lives be in thrall: the aspiration to achieve an impossible model of physical perfection.
In America this obsession has a number: double zero. As if the existence of size 0 (roughly the equivalent of UK size 4, though sizes vary from label to label) were not enough, more shops are starting to stock clothes in size 00. It’s the number of “type 00” flour, the kind that makes the best pasta, highly refined and with all the husks, lumps and imperfections removed. As a dress size it performs roughly the same function.
A size 00 has become the prize for the woman who conforms to all the demands of modern femininity — one whose body, all blemishes banished, has been honed by exercise, its purity maintained with regular detoxifications and abstinence from all fats, carbs and sugars. Eva Longoria is reportedly a 00; if Teri Hatcher isn’t already she probably will be soon.
But don’t those double digits, which even added together amount to nothing, fill you with dread? Here we are, post-feminism, post-Thatcher, in the era of Condoleezza Rice, in essence saying that, physically, the best a woman can aspire to is . . . well, to disappear. And not just once. Twice. To be a nought and double it. As the sartorial expression of a culture obsessed with female emaciation, it is perfection. As a trend it is deeply disturbing.
There is an obvious irony to the idea of a nation — America — where 60 per cent of the female population is overweight instituting a dress size that appears to negate their very existence. While it is normal to want to feel that one’s weight is under control, it is quite another thing to aspire to be literally non-existent; weightless; bulk-less.
And yet it is hard not to. Ms Beckham is not the only famous woman whose slenderness appears to go hand-in-hand with success. On Tuesday Keira Knightley attended the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest in a dress that would have struggled to flatter a 12-year-old boy. Last week, 39-year-old Nicole Kidman got married in Sydney and shortly afterwards was photographed on a beach sporting a figure that would put women half her age to shame. She may be 5ft 10in but even so, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her frame.
I could go on. Not since the days of corsets and crinolines have women received more praise for being birdlike in stature, though at least in those days it was considered acceptable to grow plump with age and childbirth. Now the expectation is that women must stay svelte for ever. Achieving size 00 will become a dangerously essential badge of honour for some.
For most of us, the goalposts have already moved beyond our reach. I could no more become a size 00 than I could give up chocolate (the two are undoubtedly related). Even so, our brains are being subtly rewired. I look back on that famous Elizabeth Hurley picture from ten years ago (you know, in the Versace safety-pin dress) and guess what? She looks a bit on the chunky side for it, by today’s standards. Contrast that with a recent picture of Mrs B, thin as a pin in top-to-toe black, chic as a Siamese kitten, on a trip to the hairdresser and I think, yeah, I’d like to look like her — even though she appears to have borrowed someone else’s bosom, quite a lot of her hair is second-hand and her trousers wouldn’t fit even one of my thighs. Some part of me has been reprogrammed to think that she looks good. And if I, a grown woman who ought to (and do, really) know better, can be made to feel that way, how must younger, more impressionable females feel?
You don’t get an eating disorder from wanting to look like Victoria Beckham; girls (and boys) who starve themselves or make themselves sick have far more deep-seated reasons for doing so. But having her image — and that of other famous women — being pushed continually as a symbol of success and glamour does not help. As Dr Dawson says: “It’s a pity she’s a celebrity because so many of my patients aspire to look like her. I just tell them to imagine how she would look without her breasts.” And she agrees that the stakes are constantly being upped. “Twiggy wouldn’t look out of the ordinary today. Models are getting thinner, yet women are getting larger.”
For anorexics, not eating is about gaining control: if your life is in disarray and many things are making you unhappy, sometimes the only thing you can change is your body. From denying themselves food, they achieve a kind of purity that they feel sets them apart from other people.
They also love the idea of physical self-effacement. Many want to occupy the smallest space possible, so as to pass unobserved. The existence of a size 00 may turn out to suit this grim purpose only too closely.
Lollipop ladies
Sitting among the WAGs at a football match is disturbing for a normal-sized woman, with thighs that spread slightly in the sitting position.
Victoria Beckham was sitting three rows and three seats away. I was watching England v Paraguay, but part of my mind was engaged with a crucial question: If I attempted the Posh Spice white jeans, how far could I inch them up over my knees? Would I manage mid-thigh?
The celebrated Mrs Beckham is tallish, and her hair is Big. But turn her sideways and she’d slip through railings. She’s joined the ranks of the Lollipop ladies — with stick bodies and oversized heads. At any moment, you fear, the big head will become too heavy for the little body to support, and loll earthwards, dragged down by its own hair extensions. You could juggle with a gaggle of WAGs and not break into a sweat. Mid-thigh with those jeans? Not a hope.
ANTONIA SENIOR
Join the debate
