While waiting at the intersection of Ellis Avenue and Magnolia Street in “Surf City” Huntington Beach, traffic came to a stop. Two police officers were keeping cars at bay without an accident in sight. Then, motorcyclists on their hogs zoomed by for about five minutes. At the end, the officers got on their on motorcycles and followed up the rear.

Any idea about what that was about?

On a more important note, I was reading this article here about model/actress/maverick Velvet d’Amour. The woman made headlines as the only 300 lb model in a haute couture fashion show. I also make mention in the article here, on this site about LA, because what other city in the U.S. is known for skinny, blonde, fashionable, toned, health-and-body conscious citizens?

 ”I’ve never said it’s, like, healthy to be fat or you should try to be fat. But I very much understand what people, and women in particular, go through to try to achieve the inaccessible. That’s why my whole goal is to diversify peoples’ notions of beauty. Not to say we should celebrate necessarily fatness. It’s to say, celebrate who we are. Because if you love yourself as a fat person, then you are far more apt to take yourself to a swimming pool. If you feel good about yourself, then you’re more apt to take care of yourself. I’m sure even people your size take issue with swimsuit season. How many articles have we seen, where… ‘OMG, it’s swimsuit season, I’ve got to go to the beach, I’ve got to lose 5 lbs’? Well imagine when you weigh 300lbs - and probably the best exercise and the only exercise you should do is to go swimming. Go take yourself to a swimming pool. I mean I’ve been called a whale at a swimming pool. I’m very confident in my body and I know that I’m not going to stop myself from getting exercise by virtue of someone putting me down. But I know that there are tonnes of women who would never go back to that swimming pool. And so if you maintain this prejudice that’s so blatant towards fat people, if the real goal is for everyone to be healthy, then certainly you’re not going to get that way by maintaining this exclusion of fat people who do exist in society. ”

Some points that I especially liked:

“Look at the plus size industry. What sizes are marketed to women of our size? Quite small women. And I think that that’s based sort of on a self-loathing of fat women in general. A lot of women will complain, ‘Why does Lane Bryant or whatever use small women’, or ‘Why are we always being sold, as fat women, much skinnier women as models?’ But they [companies] do the statistics and when they put a fatter model in it [shoot/catalogue], then they make less money, and so it’s always going to be about making money, isn’t it? If you could put a 300lb woman in a swimsuit that was meant for a 300lb woman, and people bought it, then clearly they would do that. But the fact of the matter is, if they put a 120lb woman with breast pads and butt pads in - and she’s wearing the same swimsuit that’s being sold to a 300lb woman and they get more sales from it - then that’s what’s going to happen.”

I thought it was also interesting that Velvet d’Amour has spanned the weight spectrum. She talks about how she was 117 pounds and still too “fat” for high fashion. It’s interesting that she’s now in such an opposing category, and yet, the woman is modeling at 41 and finding success in the entertainment industry. Whether she’s trailblazing a new road for beauty, for I think we have it too narrowly defined, is yet to be seen, but I’m glad she’s out there.