A tale of suffering overcome UPDATED

The Sartorialist, reacting to a woman he's just photographed for his street-style blog: "To me, this is such a great reminder to stop obsessing about my own personal imperfections and start highlighting the little gifts."

What, one might wonder, is "imperfect" about this woman? Perhaps she weighs 400 pounds, or is elderly, or has a disfiguring skin disease? Perhaps she's been in some kind of accident? Is she - god forbid - non-Aryan? In what way does her physical appearance stray from the norms of conventional beauty? What great obstacle did she overcome through well-chosen and well-styled garments, so as to be featured on a blog devoted to the well-dressed, as opposed to the simply nice-to-look-at?

How horrible: the poor dear, a young German woman, is 5'1"* and "curvy." She's wearing a huge Freaks and Geeks-style army jacket, so you're expected to take his word re: curves; it goes without saying she's photographed from an angle that makes her height tough to determine. Her face is kind of high-fashion Angelina Jolie, and because it's the Sartorialist, she's holding a cigarette rather than, say, grocery bags. She has long, straight, shiny, light brown hair that looks to be cut by someone who knew what they were doing. If the text accompanying the image didn't shout THIS IS NOT A MODEL, 99 out of 100 observers would assume this was a photograph of a woman paid for her good looks.

The Sartorialist post is part of what could well be a trend of what might best be described as faux-body-positivity, in which classically beautiful women are presented as somehow having made it into the public eye despite an "unconventional" appearance. The runway model who was always too lanky. The slim-but-busty "real, everyday girl" (how the Sartorialist describes his subject) who can't be squeezed into a sample size. Because there are roughly two types of conventional beauty (scrawny-Estonian-preadolescent and hourglass-bee-stung-lipped-22-year-old), no one woman fits both, so it's possible to say of absolutely every model or actress that she's being featured despite not quite measuring up. And this does what, precisely, for women who are in fact of average appearance?

*Is shorter-than-average stature understood as detracting from female beauty enough for this to be a feature in spite of which a woman might be considered attractive? I would press the instantly-taller button if such a thing existed, but more because it would make riding the subway more pleasant (i.e. who likes being at armpit level or worse?) and make it easier to walk down the street without people not seeing me and walking into me and just generally make me more intimidating-looking than because I think this would improve my looks. I also find models intimidating more because of how gosh darn tall they are (especially in those heels!) than because of their facial features or slimness. Thoughts? Isabel Archer, say?

UPDATE

Or consider the 16-year-old model who, though taller and thinner than most could dream of, was told to lose weight if she wants to make it in the biz. I mean, yes, it sucks that skeletal is so highly valued. But maybe rather than being aghast that such a young girl is being told she has to diet, we could be bothered by the fact that 16 is the age of the 'women' modeling women's clothing? Maybe, rather than focusing body-issues discussions on women a millimeter away from perfection...