What's in a word?

Coco Rocha - 'Plus size'

If I was to search through the English Language, to try and find words that all modern women feel should be abolished, I would find hundreds. Perhaps the worst culprit of all - the word that women worldwide hate to hear, dread to hear, can't stand hearing - is 'curvy'. So much is our society obsessed with body image that 'curvy', a word which would have flattered many a woman years ago, has grown connotations out of its control, spiralling and spiralling into a lost cavern where most women wish it would stay.

But what does it mean? In the fashion world, rather ridiculously, it means anything above a size 8. It means 'plus size', which in any other circumstance other than the industry, technically relates itself to women of a size larger than 16-18. But, as more and more people are exposed to the cynical remarks of 'curvy' women, the picking at a celebrity's body shape, the lower and lower that size number seems to fall, until perhaps, a size six will be seen as curvy.
What made me think about this, more in depth than I ever had done before, was when fashion bible blogger 'The Sartorialist' remarked upon a woman he saw in Milan. The words used were 'curvy', 'sturdy' and 'bigger'. It sparked an onling debate of thousands of comments, only for the blogger to add a footnote, saying that he loved sparking a debate, and the words were only used positively.
But shouldn't he have been more careful? In his industry, the one that arguably, we all strive to be a part of with our love for fashion, the choce of lexis were only ever going to be taken negatively. In normal society, even, to be called a 'bigger' girl calls for questioning. In actual fact, the gorgeous woman has a stunning figure, one that many of us are envious of. Are we becoming a society so obsessed with body image that the media and their skewed views are slowly changing our view towards perfectly beautiful women?

It is true, and we can all feel it happening. UK Vogue once described Lara Stone as 'curvy', and its true that in the industry, she is seen as a plus size model, just like Coco Rocha - a UK size 8 who was told to lose ten pounds in order to model. The industry regards her as 'plus size'.

Whilst body image with some women cannot be helped - I'm certainly not criticising naturally skinny women - I just wonder if this is all getting t of control. We might live in a liberal society, which we're lucky for ut our views are slowly getting narrower, particuarly to do with the way we look. It's dangerous, what a word can do to self confidence. Perhaps we should banish them altogether, or just push them to the back of our minds. We women should band together, and begin to change the connotations of words that have long been lost in translation.