It is that time of year once again for the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival and what comes with it, are all the comments of how the skinny models -they use on the runways- are not ‘real’ women.

Last night Dita Von Teese made her debut on the LMFF catwalk with her Von Follies for Target lingerie collection. Along side her was what she claimed to be ‘full-figured’ women, despite one of them being so thin that her rib cage was visible! She had tweeted before the show that she had fired anyone that was ‘too skinny’.

As a quite slender teen with little to no curves, I was labeled at high school as being under-weight or people assumed that I must have had a eating disorder. Of course neither were true, I just had a faster metabolism back then. Now, as a somewhat curvy size 14, I still would not  be considered a ‘real’ woman.

When you praise one demographic, at the same time you insult or devalue the other. It is an on going battle between skinny and full-figured, curvy or whatever you want to call it. It’s fine to call people skinny (or even anorexic) when talking about woman with smaller frames, but people are afraid of using the word ‘fat’ when they are talking about someone that is a size 14+ (12 at some stores). You will never see a store with a ‘fat’ section, it will always be called ‘full-figured’ or ‘Plus size’.

And don’t bother turning to the media for answers on what is more healthy or ‘real’ because it will just confuse you. Today they may be saying that curves are better, when next week they may tell you that people are too fat and there is too much obesity.

No matter what you weigh, what your dress size is, if you have curves or not, every woman is REAL! Women should not be defined by what they look like, but unfortunately they still are and most likely always will be.

xoxo Cotton Candy Diva