The New York Times has a cryptic quiz online today, a sort of test to answer the big question, “Why are the models scowling?”
Among the answers guessed by readers…
“It cannot possibly be that by smiling, the models think it makes their faces look fatter. Can it?”“Smiling represent the desire to please, and pleasing is a strategy for social success that smaller, less attractive people use.”
“I’m going to guess that it has something to do with lack of personality.”
“Smiling is a submissive gesture. Haute couture is all about power and exclusivity.”
“THE DESIGNER HAS TOLD THEM, NO SMILE ON THE RUNWAY!”
“The models are scowling because their hungry, thats pretty obvious.”
A note on that last explanation - Virginia Heffernan recently wrote in The Times Magazine on the loss of humor in anorexia patients (actually, it was about how sitcom writers are usually overweight, but that was in there). We genuinely don’t believe most models are anorexic, but during Fashion Week, they are certainly tired and often hungry from working such long hours.
The answer to this mystery won’t appear on the Times site until tomorrow, but at least now we can ponder - again - why the smiling models at Michael Kors looked so odd.
posted by michope
Feb 22, 2007 12:57PM
I feel like models don't smile because your attention is supposed to be on the clothes not on their faces, no?