Kim Kardashian posts ugly pictures. THE HORROR.

Posted on March 12, 2012 by busts4justice

Kim Kardashian posts ugly pictures of self

This is kind of an old story, but as it’s still kicking about in all of my RSS feeds it must still be doing the rounds – and therefore people must still be gobbling this up. The news? Reality megastar and, erm, other-things-too-I-assume Kim Kardashian has – shock horror – posted ugly pictures of herself on to her blog. Oh the inhumanity. Brace yourselves, this is NOT going to be pretty.

It’s horrible, isn’t it? I mean truly – HOW am I supposed to go about my evening now those DEPRAVED pictures have crossed before my retinas? WHY would anyone release these monstrosities in to a world with children in?

Ak.

If that’s ugly, there is no word in this world strong enough to describe me after ET dies.

Don’t get me wrong, I know millions of beautiful women out there genuinely believe they are plain, or suffer moments of insecurity about the way they look – who feel pressured to change who they are to fit in with what they feel they should be. Hell, I know hundreds of them. It can be annoying and frustrating to listen to, but we all understand that insecurity. We all understand what it’s like to live in a world with such pressure to look a certain way, and where ‘hotness’ is so often celebrated above than intelligence, talent, or kindness.

But Kim Kardashian (or Kelly Brook, as I wrote a while ago) are different, because their physical beauty is validated by fame and masses of cash. They are paid for being beautiful, and accordingly become part of the machine that upholds a certain beauty as the ideal. I’m not saying they can’t think they’re having an off day, but COME ON!  Has she confused the definition of ‘ugly’ with ‘face expression emotions other than doe-eyed sexy pout’? Because I pull that particular face almost every time I log in to Twitter. Or indeed, read a Kardashian blog…

This is not KK bashing post – I literally don’t know enough about the woman to have a fully formed opinion (although- sure – ideally role models to young girls would not have found fame and fortune through leaked sex tapes and Paris Hilton’s socialite mentoring scheme) – but this sort of thing drives me bananas. Why can’t Kim Kardashian be honest, and say “check me out – I’m technically hotter wailing like a banshee than you were on your wedding day: thanks gene pool lottery, privileged upbringing, and army of stylists…”

I’d even settle for “Man, I think I’m ugly when I cry. This insane pressure on women to be flawless at all times sure is skewing my perception of reality.”

Sigh. Sometimes I think if I stayed on celebrity blogs enough my brains would actually leak out of my ears. I really need my new bras for review to arrive…

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I hate Victoria’s Secret

Posted on March 10, 2012 by busts4justice

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In terms of good fit awareness and availability of D+bras, it’s probably fair to say that the US is at least 10 years behind the UK high street – possibly more. It’s shocking, but not hard to believe: I was in New York last weekend and witnessed a lot of Very Bad Things being done to boobs. Cruel quadraboobs. Painfully inept sports bras. Shoulders sliced by straining spindly straps. And not a D+ bra in sight.

My one weekend in New York is backed up by the very many e-mails, tweets and Facebook messages I get from US girls asking for help finding a good fitter. Nordstrom, one of the only mainstream retailers to carry DD+ lingerie, is reportedly hit and miss on the fit front – leaving swathes of women either trial-and-erroring their way to a decent fit via mail order, or simply in the dark that lingerie can – and should be – more comfortable than they know. (US fit specialists – let me know where you are so I can pass on your details – your country needs you!)

I digress. Whilst in New York, presiding over this (very awesome) city of squished boobs, was Victoria’s Secret. Everywhere. Huge billboards. Enormous shops. Hundreds of women clutching the pink glossy bags stuffed with VS lingerie and tissue.

Man, I hate Victoria’s Secret.

I hate that such a huge and influential lingerie company was founded to make lingerie shopping easier for men, with a system that works on estimation (for men), and the ridiculous overbust measuring technique (which is basically the plus-four method, but weirder).

Victoria's Secret fitting advice is wrong

And I hate the bland, boring, homogenous version of ‘sexy’ they uphold. Very Sexy – in VS land – is ‘pushed up, often to the point of strangulation’, with a good dose of fake tan and airbrushing thrown in for good measure. The sultry, straight-from-Playboy pouts are about as convincing as a Playtex bra makeover video, and there’s something oddly inanimate and dead-eyed about the women after they’ve been posed, styled and assembled in to a VS poster. Mr B4J says ‘they literally take the titillation out of tits’ – and he’s right. Lingerie should be well fitting and supportive, but it is also playful, fun, and sexy. Victoria’s Secret is not.

But mostly, I hate that nothing about the bad fit advice, the awful fit on show, the irresponsible airbrushing, and their boring Nuts Magazine-style artwork is done to support, empower, or celebrate the women the business relies on for its $5bn revenue. It’s exploitative, it’s irresponsible, it’s a relic… and it’s businesses like this that keep American women in the wrong sized bras for life.

Women deserve more than Victoria’s Secret. It’s time to start demanding it.

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Posted in War on Plus Four | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 53 Comments

Happy International Women’s Day!

Posted on March 8, 2012 by busts4justice

Happy International Women’s day to all my amazing readers. Go forth and be awesome!

Posted in Feminism, News | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Star in a Bra heads to the USA!

Posted on March 2, 2012 by busts4justice

Curvy Kate Lingerie

 

It’s belated, perhaps – but I was away when Curvy Kate announced that Star in a Bra was launching in America, and it’s such good news it’s definitely worth shouting about twice.

Entering Star in a Bra is not my own personal cup of tea – but for those whose cup of tea it is, it’s been a hugely liberating and empowering experience. Check out the interviews with last year’s top three to find out more…

Most interesting though, is that Curvy Kate are one of the most vocally pro-women, pro-curve, and pro-good fit brands out there – whilst the US is hugely behind Europe and the UK in terms of D+ awareness and availability. I’m hoping the Star in a Bra franchise will unleash them and their mission on to the USA with force, introducing a wider audience to better fit and the alphabet beyond D. Which sucks for all of those brands currently complacent in their insistence that everyone fits in an A-D, and disregard women’s comfort and body confidence in favour of a bigger bottom line. Mentioning no names… *cough, victoria’ssecretplaytexmaidenformetcetcetc, cough*  American women deserve more than their lingerie brands are giving them, and I think Curvy Kate could be just the girls to teach them a lesson…

Curvy Kate launches SIAB USA in April, so there’s plenty of time to practice your poses. In the meantime you can stay up to date by liking them on Facebook, or check out their (yum) new swimwear and spring collections on the website…

What do you think – will you be entering?

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A lesson learned…

Posted on February 28, 2012 by busts4justice

Wonderbra Ultimate Strapless

Despite some accusations in the War on Plus Four, while I am a staunch believer that the +0 method is a better starting place for fit, I am not militant about the ‘right’ bra size. Every enthusiast worth her salt knows that the key is fit – and that those little numbers can vary from brand to brand and style to style.

More than that, I have been known to dabble in what could arguably be called the ‘wrong fit’ too. I mean, sure my 34E Agent Provocateur Fifi digs in at the shoulders and I spill over the top when I walk – but does it matter when it’s so beautiful and it doesn’t leave the house?

Agent Provocateur Fifi
And I’ll admit – my 32F Wonderbra Ultimate Strapless is a bit loose and does require occasional jiggling – but in the absence of a 30G and with standard balconette/plunge styles murder on my bony and prominent sternum – does it matter?

Well, my Thai holiday (the reason for my recent hiatus, and for this horrible jet lag…) may have taught me my lesson. Held up by my 32F strapless, I walked, ate and tuk-tukked my way through a day in Bangkok for before catching a 3 hour train north to our next stop.

Aside from the fact I was boiling to death (molded cups do not love 40C temperatures), I was super-aware of just how wrong my fit was. The movement. The wobbling. The shifting. In the heat, it felt more of a compromise in fit than it ever had before.

I knew I couldn’t wait to get the thing off, but I was surprised at what I found when I did: long thin strips of blisters decorated my sides from where my bra had rubbed in the heat. Gross, and ouch.

Fortunately, Mr B4J’s first aid skills saw them reduce significantly overnight, and though I was sore the next day the blistering had at least gone down. The day after, I could wear a bra again. Two weeks on though, I still wear the scars.

The moral of the story? Of course, when you’re in the G+++ echelons of bra sizing, it’s often tempting (and sometimes essential) to compromise on fit to get something you want. And we’re grown women – it’s up to us how we dress our own boobs. But when playing this game, let’s not forget that it’s a compromise. We need to be careful about our assets, and while we’re at it not forget that the perfect fit exists – and that with our custom and our complaints slowly more companies are inching towards it. Something perhaps perfectly demonstrated by the fact that Wonderbra have – perfect timing – revealed their Ultimate Strapless in a 30 back up to a GG. I do love a happy ending.

Oh, and another lesson learned… don’t even think about molded styles in the upper thirties. They’re bra saunas that close to the equator. Cruel. And unpleasantly sticky…

 

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