The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
the b-side
 
 
 
 
 Thursday, March 23, 2017 — 5B

FACEBOOK

Supermodel Twiggy
Twiggy and Kate: Fashion 
and the size zero epidemic

How fashion’s constructed ideals of size and skinniness have 
affected the average female buyer — Brandy Melville included

One size fits all, pigs really 

can fly and Trump didn’t win 
the 
election. 
Actually, 
one 

size fits few, pigs still can’t fly 
and the new U.S. budget has a 
Toupee Clause.

It’s long been debated that 

perhaps the fashion industry’s 
greatest 
flaw 
is 
the 
zero 

epidemic. The size zero has 
become the golden standard for 
the American woman, despite 
the impossibility and risk it 
poses.

Fashion 
of 
the 
late 

1960s 
brought 
us 
Twiggy, 

revolutionizer of supermodel 
status, but also the harsh 
ideals of female body size (not 
to blame Twiggy). Models like 
Kate Moss followed suit in 
promoting the trend and the 
overwhelming popularity of 
their zero-zero frames created 
an undeniable expectation for 
the next generation of women. 

Among 
the 
many 

implications 
and 
concerns 

behind the epidemic, body 
dysmorphia is a disorder that 
often 
manifests 
itself 
into 

anorexia nervosa and bulimia 
out of an obsessive desire to 
change 
appearance 
due 
to 

perceived 
ugliness. 
Those 

suffering from it often lock 
themselves away and avoid all 
social interaction out of severe 
sense of physical inadequacy. 
The 
disorder 
affects 
1 
in 

50 people and most women 
affected are preoccupied with 
their hips and weight.

A 
recent 
survey 
asked 

teen girls: if they could have 
anything, what it would be? 
The number one answer was 
to lose weight and keep it off. 
Yet the size zero models who 
are looked to as the standard 
of beauty are on average 13-19 
percent under their expected 
body mass index — 15 percent 
under a normal body weight 
meets the criteria for anorexia 
nervosa. Between the pages 

of underweight models are 
dieting and weight loss ads, 
enforcing these unattainable 
standards.

Yet as the decades went by, 

reality contradicted the ideal. 
The average female body size 
grew farther and farther away 
from what was once considered 
the “perfect body.” And while 
average 
women 
grew 
in 

weight, models continued to 
get thinner, generating a wider 
and more terrifying gap that 
women starve themselves to 
cross.

In 1966, Twiggy was actually 

an eight according to universal 
sizing measurements. Today 
she would measure in at a 

zero-zero. 
This 
so 
called 

“vanity sizing” — arbitrary 
swell in sizing measurements 
to accommodate larger body 
sizes 
— 
manipulates 
self-

esteem, not to mention ruins 
online shopping. But clothing 
companies found women were 
psychologically compelled to 
buy clothing with a smaller 
size, explaining the surge in 
vanity sizing. The universal 
sizing chart has been rendered 
meaningless all to be closer to 
a size zero.

To further convince girls 

of their dysmorhpia-favored 
body sizing, front running 
companies sell “one size fits 
all.” For most brands, like 
Brandy 
Melville, 
“one 
size 

fits all” measurements line up 
with a zero on universal charts 
and tend to fit girls within the 
range of small, exclusively. 
For few, the fitting room 
is a rewarding experience. 
But every other woman is 
guaranteed a traumatic fitting 
room experience finding she 
is somehow the outlier of the 
word “all.”

High 
fashion 
especially 

makes little effort to represent 
all sizes or even a healthy body 
image and the inclusion of plus 
sized shows is thought of as an 
accommodating gesture rather 
than the norm. Besides lacking 
racial diversity, size diversity 
is even sparser on the runway. 
Designers like Marc Jacob 
and Sophie Theallet featured 
plus size models in their latest 
collections — yet the feature 
of a singular plus sized model 
among so many zeroes almost 
seemed demoralizing to plus 
sized women by promoting the 
distorted mindset that they are 
somehow the outliers. 

Leaders 
of 
the 
fashion 

industry cite a number of 
reasons for failing to represent 
the plus sized majority. Some 
designers simply don’t want to, 
claiming their target will never 
be the size 12 and up since 
skinny will forever be the look. 
Karl Lagerfeld put it simply 
saying: “No one wants to see 
curvy women.”

Mentor Tim Gunn refuted 

these ideas in a recent article for 
The Washington Post slamming 
the notion that curvier women 
are at fault for the lack of 
clothing in circulation for their 
figures. The market for plus 
sized clothing is booming with 
potential and eager spenders. 
In fewer words, Gunn accused 
designers of not having any 
balls. It’s as if it never occurred 
to them they’re still designing 
for women of decades past. But 
progress is in the works and the 
hope is that one day the fashion 
industry will settle on body 
image ideals inclusive for all 
women. 

‘Mental Health in the 
Age of Trump’: A keynote 

Reflections on mental health in Trump’s America, its integration with the 
Asian/Pacific Islander community, the culture clash of “Americanization”

Last week I attended a 

keynote titled “Mental Health 
in the Age of Trump” put 
on by the Asian / Pacific 
Islander 
American 
Studies 

program. I went in expecting 
to learn more about the way 
in which Americans look at 
mental health and how it is 
evolving under the Trump 
administration. While I did 
learn a little about this, I ended 
up learning much more about 
the mental health of Asian 
Americans and the evolution 
of how we as a society have 
defined mental health. Mimi 
Khúc, University of Maryland 
Professor of Asian American 
Studies, 
was 
the 
keynote 

speaker and gave a captivating 
presentation.

The 
first 
part 
of 
the 

presentation focused on the 
different 
ways 
we 
define 

mental 
health 
and 
how 

some are questioning these 
definitions now more than ever. 
Mental health is defined by the 
World Health Organization as 
“a state of well-being in which 
every individual realizes his 
or her own potential, can cope 
with the normal stresses of 
life, can work productively and 
fruitfully, and is able to make 
a contribution to her or his 
community.”

Prominent 
figures 
like 

Khúc in the mental health 
field are starting to question 
this 
definition 
of 
mental 

health. 
One 
specific 
point 

that Khúc questions is the 
segment of the definition that 
suggests our health is likened 
to productivity. She doubts 
that mental illness is linked 
to our level of contribution 

to society. She also brought 
up a suggestion about mental 
health in our culture — when 
“sickness” 
due 
to 
mental 

health is seen as temporary, 
care for it will never become 
normalized 
within 
society. 

We need to start seeing care 
for mental health as a lifelong 
endeavor. People have good 
and bad times with their 
mental illness, but it is never 
completely absent.

A 
big 
part 
of 
Khúc’s 

presentation 
focused 

specifically 
on 
the 
mental 

health of second generation 
Asian 
Americans, 
where 

her area of expertise is at 
the University of Maryland. 
She discussed some of the 
experiences that her students, 
particularly those that are 
themselves second generation 
Asian Americans, have shared 
with her over time. They often 
report feeling very anxious 
out of the pressure they feel 
put on them to succeed. These 
students report feelings of 
depression and high levels of 
anxiety.

These 
kinds 
of 
feelings 

become even more dangerous 
when the students live in 
households 
where 
mental 

health is often not seen as an 
important issue and feel that 
they should be silent about 
their feelings. A lot of the 
time, the students talking to 
Khúc are talking about their 
mental health issues openly 
to someone for the first time. 
Anxiety and depression are 
also significant problems here 
at the University of Michigan. 
Students with mental health 
problems 
often 
feel 
their 

disorders are intensified by 
the high stress of being a 
student here, and a lot of these 
students are not satisfied with 

the mental health resources 
on campus. The University is 
working toward trying to fix 
this problem, and hopefully 
serious change comes sooner 
rather than later.

Khúc’s students also report 

that they are constantly trying 
to become more “American” 
and are caught between the 
culture of their ancestors and 
the one that they were born 
into. This problem has become 
even more difficult for some 
because of the emergence of 
the 
Trump 
administration. 

Khúc, like many, sees the 
Trump 
administration 
as 

a 
crystallization 
of 
what 

already existed in America. In 
Trump’s new sponsored health 
care plan, almost all coverage 
for mental health has been 
removed. Being a minority in 
America with mental health 
problems must be terrifying 
right now, especially if your 
parents are first generation 
immigrants. People often feel 
the need to “rage” or “hide” in 
this era, but we must fight in 
a calculated and intellectual 
way, Khúc said.

Khúc’s 
primary 
area 
of 

research is the mental health 
of Asian American mothers. 
She explores the issue of 
postpartum depression, and 
the extreme stress society 
places 
on 
mothers 
to 
be 

constantly happy while caring 
for their child. We don’t talk 
about how hard society makes 
motherhood, 
yet 
still 
the 

expectation for mothers is for 
them to be perfect. This is even 
harder for second generation 
minority Americans who have 
the added stress of deciding 
how hard they want to try 
to make their family unit 
“American” or stick to the 
values of their parents.

JOSEPH FRALEY

Daily Arts Writer

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW

If you haven’t yet seen Clean 
Bandit’s new music video for 
“Symphony,” now is the time. 
The video is emotional, well 
filmed and perfectly in tune 
with the lyrics and feeling of the 
song.
At the very beginning of the 
video for “Symphony,” a man 
gets into a bike crash on his 
way home from the library. The 
rest of the video cuts between 
the grief his boyfriend is going 
through and flashbacks of their 
relationship together: Talking 
and laughing together on a bed, 
racing through a field. In the 
backdrop, a symphony is per-
forming — featuring Zara Lars-
son as its lead vocalist — and 
toward the end of the video, the 
conductor of the symphony is 
revealed to be the grieving boy-
friend.
When I first started watching 
the video, thinking about it in 
conjunction with its lyrics, it 
didn’t make sense to me. “Sym-
phony” doesn’t sound like a song 
about grief. The main actor in 
the video, playing the boyfriend, 
does a terrific performance of 
the emotional tolls that grief has 
on a person: He breaks down 
crying, he smashes a mirror. But 
at first listen, “Symphony” isn’t a 
sad song or even really an angry 

one.
Then, about halfway through 
the video, it hit me: “Symphony” 
is a song about frustration. It’s 
about being on one side of some-
thing, and longing — desperately 
— for a second side that doesn’t 
exist.
This is what the video does so 
well: It captures what it feels 
like to be so close to an impos-

sible love. And what that feels 
like, of course, is agony. By inter-
cutting the boyfriend’s grief 
— hearing about the accident 
from the police, breaking down, 
smashing the mirror — with the 
memories of their relationship, 
the video shows us how infuri-
ating it is, how heartbreaking, to 
know simultaneously how good 
something was, and how impos-
sible it is to ever have it again.
“I just wanna be part of your 
symphony,” Larsson sings, and 
this line both appreciates the 
beauty of the men’s love and 
gives a hint of the frustration 
that follows the bike accident. 
For all that the main charac-
ter wants is to rejoin his lover’s 

symphony, to go back to the hap-
piness that they had during their 
relationship; it’s something he 
can never do. The lyrics do carry 
further hints of the desperation 
that follows loss, such as “I can’t 
find the key without you,” and 
“When you’re gone, I feel incom-
plete.”
The revelation that the boy-
friend is the symphony’s con-
ductor brings this emotion to a 
head, because as a profession for 
him, in this moment, it makes 
complete sense. Conducting is a 
movement of precision, of con-
trol. It is also the action used 
to harness the beauty of a sym-
phony, to bring it into being and 
to have it make sense. Perhaps 
this is why, at the very end of the 
video, there is a shot of the audi-
ence: Completely empty, except 
for the man from the beginning 
of the video, sitting alone in the 
concert hall with tears on his 
face.
This is a beautiful moment that 
perfectly rounds out the striking 
emotional impact of the video. 
“Symphony” is thoughtfully and 
sensitively put together from 
beginning to end, and in every 
way that it could have hoped to 
work out, it does. 

— Laura Dzubay

SARAH AGNONE

Daily Arts Writer

STYLE NOTEBOOK

COMMUNITY CULTURE PROFILE

High fashion 

especially makes 

little effort to 

represent all sizes 
or even a healthy 

body image

HELP A PAL OUT AND APPLY TO TV.

SERIOUSLY.

IT’S BEEN THIRTY MINUTES AND 

NABEEL STILL WON’T STOP CRYING.

E-mail arts@michigandaily for 

information on applying.

“Symphony”

Clean Bandit

Atlantic, Epic 

ATLANTIC