Thursday, August 2, 2007

Food! Fashion! Panties?

Here's another goodie!

Can you spot me and P-Tizzle in the Fashion Show?

For the record, the point was to show the baby in the LLLI Licensed clothes not me or the sling but he was sick and I was NOT taking his cranky behind out of the sling.

If you weren't there you missed the historic LLLI fashion show. Not that big of a deal to me...but I would love to hear your thoughts. Should LLLI be licensing it's name to panties and bras and onesies? Was the model in a bra walking the stage during our tea in bad taste? Is this the wrong image of LLLI on the internet? Is it a forward-thinking modern image?

Post your thoughts and let me know. Especially those who are "outside" of LLLI - how does this affect your view of leaders, of LLLI, of what we do?

2 comments:

Julie said...

Hey, you and your little one look just fabulous out there - you look very comfortable on the catwalk!

I don't take issue with LLLI having a line of baby clothes or lingerie - or even with having someone model the bras at a luncheon. But I think it would have been nice if they'd had a more "real person" looking model.

Having a tall, thin, flat-bellied, perky-boobed model who's probably not even thinking about having a child for another 10 years modeling bras to a room full of mothers who have the bumps, bulges and sags of motherhood - is maybe not the best approach.

I think it would have been great if they'd had some real moms modeling the bras as well as the babywear. The marketers at La Leche could take a lesson from the Dove people who are making marketing history by showing the beauty of women of all shapes and sizes.

Micky said...

Several people have made the same comment to me about having a "real person" model. At first I dismissed the comments, not thinking much of them.

Then I realized, wait, she is a real person. She breastfed two sons for what western culture would call an "extended period". She is just as much of a breastfeeding mother as I am. She is a LLL Leader and went through the same leadership process I did. She is passionate about helping moms and babies.

She just happens to also be beautiful, have insane genetics and somehow got her amazing model figure back after having babies. It does happen. Not often, but it does happen. Beautiful people have babies and breastfeed too.

I wondered if it hurt her feelings to hear those types of comments about "real women" instead of her. I am sure she has heard them her entire life.

The thought that struck me while at the conference was how many of us leaders are overweight and even obese. Yet, one of the things we advocate is healthy eating and eating food as close to the natural state as possible. Now, I am naturally a "big girl" so don't get me wrong, but it is clear we aren't living all of the LLLI philosophy as carefully as other parts. I say that knowing that I currently have an addiction to chocolate covered almonds, don't take time to exercise and haven't lost the weight from baby #3 (which always fell off before).

I guess my main point is that we have to not only demand acceptance for the average (size 14) woman but also love our sisters in whatever size they come.

Micky