![\"High](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/r9f.352.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/High-Style-eta_hentz_ivory_beads.jpg?resize=234%2C400\" "\\"Evening")
This week I went to the Legion of Honor to see High Style<\/a><\/em>, an exhibit of 20th<\/sup> century haute couture<\/em> from the Brooklyn Museum\u2019s Costume Collection.<\/p>\nI could actually care less about fashion. I grow uneasy flipping through women\u2019s glossy magazines, and I hate clothes-shopping. Buying shoes is even worse.<\/p>\n
Still, I love fashion exhibits at museums.<\/p>\n
First up at High Style<\/em> were the shoes\u2014sumptuous embroidered leathers that squashed toes into ridiculous points. Then it was time for the real deal\u2014the clothing. I loved the beading, plunging backs, and tight bodices. Soft, sensuous folds clung so enticingly to the mannequins–mannequins who were faceless, sometimes limbless, disappearing into nothingness. And so slim!<\/p>\n As I drank it all in, I became increasingly uneasy, aware that anorexia was integral to the look I so loved. According to the New York Times<\/a><\/em>, more than 36,000 French women suffer from anorexia. In America, it\u2019s estimated<\/a> that 0.5 to 3.7 percent of women suffer from the disorder\u00a0in their lifetime.\u00a0That\u2019s a lot of women disappearing into nothingness, sometimes fatally so–eating disorders have the highest mortality rates of any mental illness.<\/p>\n The birthplace of haute couture<\/em> is seeing progress, however. Recently the French Assembly passed amendments that would help combat anorexia promulgated by the fashion industry. As a laudatory editorial in the New York Times<\/em><\/a> points out, \u201cThe amendments send a powerful message from the global capital of fashion that severe malnutrition should never be considered fashionable.\u201d<\/p>\n In the same week I saw High Style<\/em>, my Facebook feed featured an image that originally went viral in 2013–\u201creal women\u201d mannequins in a Swedish department store. They’re a lot different from the alabaster ghosts of High Style:<\/em><\/p>\n So go, enjoy the show (it runs through July 19). Then enjoy a nice lunch afterwards. Most important, always enjoy being a real woman.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n How has the fashion industry’s depiction of women affected you?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week I went to the Legion of Honor to see High Style, an exhibit of 20th century haute couture from the Brooklyn Museum\u2019s Costume Collection. I could actually care less about fashion. I grow uneasy flipping through women\u2019s glossy … Continue reading ![\"High](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/r9f.352.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/High-style-shoe-300x173.jpg?resize=300%2C173\" "\\"http:\/\/legionofhonor.famsf.org\/files\/styles\/exhibition_preview_large\/public\/exhibitions\/4_0.jpg?itok=PlLILLkb\\"")
As someone who seeks out Mary-Janes and who has never teetered on anything\u00a0higher than a low-heeled pump, I marveled at the tortures women subject themselves to. One atelier boasted of crafting the most expensive shoes in Paris\u2014the equivalent of $10,000 in today\u2019s dollars. This made me feel better about my $150 Arcopedicos, the only shoe besides my Merrell hiking boots I really trust.<\/p>\n![\"Real](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/r9f.352.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Real-Women-mannequins1.jpg?resize=584%2C673\" "\\"Source:")
<\/p>\n