POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

L.A. Times writer celebrates 60′s “more natural” women’s bodies

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Hawt Coture. Click to enlarge-you'll want to.

And, she says it pretty well too.  There's not too much I can add, you know, besides a healthy huzzah! 

Watch some of the commentary features on the DVD editions and you'll hear the show's creator, Matt Weiner, refer to "period bodies." What he means is that just as the show applies painstaking care to finding sofas and kitchen appliances exactly like those you would have seen in that era, it also seeks bodies — particularly female ones — quintessentially of the time. That means no ripped abs or fake breasts, no preternaturally white teeth. (A lot of people wear eyeglasses too — the horror!) 

To put it mildly, Madison Avenue's mid-'60s dress code is quite a bit more formal than most of what we see on the street today. With the sort of snug tailoring that demands industrial-strength undergarments, the clothes seem at first glance like a direct reflection of the punctiliousness, even the oppressiveness, of the era. We may appreciate those cinched waists and gloved arms aesthetically — and it's fun to incorporate a little old-school glitz into wardrobes that increasingly suggest the whole world has become a yoga class — but the average 21st century woman isn't about to wear a girdle and stockings to the office every day. 

Maybe that's why we harbor just a tiny bit of envy toward the women of "Mad Men." Deprived of "advantages" like Pilates classes and fat burners and ever-more common surgical procedures, estranged from the feelings of inadequacy that come from "failing" to achieve physical perfection despite the vast array of tools at hand, their "period bodies" amount to something that, especially when it comes to our idols, is rare today if not downright taboo: normal, regular proportions. 

Well said Ms. Daum, well said.  Full disclosure; I've yet to see one episode of the TV show "Mad Men", not being a big TV guy myself anyway, but, you know, actually lived during, and vividly remember, the 1960's.  And I think there's a lot of unnecessary anxiety, especially among women but increasingly with men as well, that is caused by people obsessing over their bodies and phsyiques, for more asthetic than health oriented reasons, in our modern image conscious society.  And that's not to say that in the 60's there weren't the same kind of attitudes, but, at least I'd like to think that it was a less shallow and "me" oriented time; one where substance trumped style among serious people. 

Anyway, enough of that.  Read the whole piece, it's really good.  And, as a parting shot, feast your eyes once again on Ms. Hendricks 

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Click to enlarge, you won't be sorry

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