ALL SHAPES AND SIZES

    

It will not have escaped most of you that Woman has changed her shape quite markedly over the last 70 years or so. This seems to be a never-ending process as the femme fatale expands, slims down and slowly swells again, first for her own and secondly for mere males’ delectation. I hasten to add that ladies are lovely whatever shape is in fashion - we cannot have too much of them!

Venus de Milo

Botticelli's Venus

The Venus de Milo, from the 2^nd century BC is a handsomely curvaceous ideal (une grande gendarme, complained unimpressed Renoir) while Botticelli’s waif-like Venus has shed many pounds in the meanwhile. These were classical figures to admire and were not intended to remind you of the girl next door. The pendulum swung back to the beefy, not to say obese, with those heavy-thighed Flemish ladies of Rubens, a stiff challenge for any prospective Don Juan.

The Rape of the Sabine Women by Rubens

In the 19^th and early 20^th century the female form was strictly covered up, unless you bought those rather feeble postcards from disreputable Frog touts at Paris railway stations. But it could not last and it was foreign films that showed the way, at least to the buttoned-up Brits. The Continental cinema cornered the market in voluptuous beauties, an early favourite of mine being Gina Lollobrigida: then La Dolce Vita exploded with well-upholstered Anita Ekberg soon to be followed by statuesque Ursula Andress. No modest wallflowers here.

Gina Lollobrigida

Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita

 

The US was well up with the game as their great pin-up Marilyn Monroe was far from svelte and amusing Jayne Mansfield was positively top-heavy.

Marilyn Monroe

 

 

Indeed the US became breast-obsessed to a remarkable degree provoking the hilarious tirade from Terry-Thomas about the importance of brassieres to the American economy in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Slow-starting Britain eventually joined the so-called sexual revolution, though maybe not quite as late as poet Philip Larkin ironically dated this great moment:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Everyone let it all hang out. Brigitte Bardot had shown the way in And Woman was Created (although I admired her pert bottom rather than her cheeky breasts). Actresses were determined to strip off like Vanessa Redgrave while Glenda Jackson rather overdid it. We forget what a bright screen presence she had, a world away from the later snarling leftist harridan on the Labour benches.

 Shapes changed too; the voluptuous gave way to delicate Audrey Hepburn, iconic models Jean Shrimpton and almost anorexic Twiggy. The miniskirt flattered those with slim legs, though not all wearers understood that. As the years passed, a slightly fuller figure was back in vogue with Jamie Lee Curtis leading the charge and lovely Kiera Knightley must have been mortified to hear her modest breasts recently dismissed by her director as “two poached eggs”!

 

 

Keira Knightley

Of course physical attributes are not of overriding importance. A woman’s intelligence and dynamism matter much more. I am however reminded of my dear mother-in-law who, charitably supporting the merits of a friend’s daughter, would say “she has lovely eyes” - a sure signal that the rest of her was hideous!  However, this piece is meant to be a calm analysis of the geometry of Woman and not a sexist effusion.

                      

Amal and George Clooney

 But am I wrong in advising today’s icon Amal Alamuddin (aka Mrs George Clooney) to add a pound or two in her new home at Sonning, Berkshire? She seems in want of a square meal and I recommend a generous portion of steak and kidney pie, with sprouts and floury potatoes followed by treacle pudding.

SMD

26.10.14

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2014