Big Girl, You Are Beautiful to Max Azria

When the music started playing and the models walking out, I started laughing hysterically. For at least half the show, and all of the finale, Max Azria had Mika's Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) pumping in the background. I was far from the only one noticing the choice of music, although most of the comments I heard were in regards to how fun it was (it is indeed, a happy bouncing tune, perfectly energetic for the runway), or just remarking about the song at all.

How ironic that this song was used, as the Council of Fashion Designers of America just met that morning to talk about what they're going to do about the issue of skinny models (in WWD.com). Style.com tactfully decided to interpret the music choice as that "to hammer home the point that the three-season-old Max Azria line is more grown-up than its sibling, BCBG Max Azria."

Yeah, um, sure. I never heard the song before last night and was highly amused during the entire show (from SweetLyrics):

Big girl you are beautiful

Walks in to the room
Feels like a big balloon
I said hey girl you are beautiful
Diet coke and a pizza please
Diet coke im on my knees
Screaming, big girl you are beautiful

You take your skinny girl
I feel like im gonna die
Coz a real woman needs a (real man has why)
You take your girl and multiply about four
Now a whole lot of woman needs a whole lot more
...
Curves in the right places

The NY Times's article today about the dilemma of unhealthy models, Looking Beyond the Runway For Answers on Underweight Models, hits upon most of the complications of the recent discussions. Yes, it is complicated, and the other activities mentioned that put a strong emphasis on weight gain or loss show this (dancing, wrestling, jockeying, etc).

Regardless, whether as a protest against artist limitation or as a jab to the hysteria, the song and show definitely stuck in my head! (And sorry, Max Azria didn't back the song up with appropriately large ladies - the models were still typically thin, athough I guess according to the Times, not quite as thin or as young as last season's go around.)