I walk every day at our local mall with all the other senior citizens. It's nice that they open early so that we can still get our exercise in the cold weather. Anyhow, I have all the store windows memorized by now, and one thing strikes me: who are they kidding with the mannequins they use to represent the human figure? Have they looked around at their prospective customers? Nobody looks like those stick figures in the windows! 
Another thing that strikes me is the way they pose these stick figures. The human body is not built to contort into these positions without risking serious injury. They all seem to be having just a hilarious time, no matter what they are doing. I guess there are no real problems in Mannequinworld. The posed male mannequins are especially interesting. If any guy stood on the corner with hands on hips and pelvis thrust forward the way these mannequins do, it would look like he was waiting for the fleet to come in!
Whether we like it or not, people are bigger today than they used to be. A less physical lifestyle, the discretionary income (at least until recently) to eat out in restaurants more, and the proliferation of fast food joints whose menus are not compatible with slimmer profiles are all contributors to the hard fact that there is definitely more of us to love than ever before in our history. Obesity is a national problem that will not go away any time soon. I'm not going to lecture here on being overweight, I only mean to point out that the stores where we buy our clothes need to recognize that their clientele is getting bigger.
Have you ever approached that sale rack looking for a bargain? It's the end of the season and there are some snazzy looking winter jackets for half-price. Sorry, the only sizes left are small and extra small. The fact that these sizes are the only ones always left over should tell the store's dimwit buyer something...buy more big sizes for crying out loud. I think manufactures need to understand this as well. Some of the sizes labeled small would be tight on Lara Flynn Boyle. And another thing, how about standardizing sizes so that large means large regardless of who made the item.
There was a time when the ideal figure for a man or woman might be described as pleasingly plump. The Gibson Girl was the personification of the feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical pen and ink illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson during a twenty year period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United States. The Gibson Girl was tall, slender yet with ample bosom, hips and bottom in the S-curve torso shape achieved by wearing a corset. In today's thin-obsessed fashion terminology, she would be described as full-figured.
Personally, I like to see some curves on a woman. The starving waifs that strut down the runways these days look like they need a corned beef sandwich. The bombshells from the old Hollywood days are right up my alley. Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Raquel Welch...hubba hubba! I put it to you gentlemen, you're on death row, (the real one in Texas where they actually off murderers), and they offer you one conjugal visit from one of the ladies shown at left. Who you gonna pick? I rest my case.
LOOKING FOR A WORTHY CHARITY? TRY THESE FOLKS: Children's Craniofacial Association
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