Curve

Be not ashamed, women—your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest;

You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

-Walt Whitman

A post devoted to the corporeal, the round, the sensual, the bootylicious.  Because nothing gold can stay and celebration and thanks for our fleeting and fragile health- not loathing, comparison, or yearning toward an everchanging beauty standard - should rule.  (I think about this a lot, working at a hospital with a unique patient population of very young (<25 years old) amputees.  There is no room for fretting about [insert body image issue here] when confronted with a boy who lost his legs in Afghanistan.) 

Let's instead get enjoying this wild and precious life.  Let's sing the body electric.  Zaftig.  Skinny.  Pillowy.  Lithe.  Wrinkly.  Normal.  Miraculous.

Melissa McCarthy and her Spanx  Hilarious.

In contrast, Mission Control USA makes shapewear that doesn't make you appear shiny, tan-pink and tubular (looking, er, wurst instead of best), instead sexy and modern.

Shapewear secured, make the perfect chocolate truffles!

How gorgeous are these hanging planters from Gainey Ceramics?

ode to stretch marks



This Annie Liebowitz photograph of Demi Moore (Vanity Fair, 1991) was the first of its kind and is ranked second in all-time best covers by the American Society of Magazine Editors (first went to the iconic image of a naked John Lennon curled around his wife Yoko Ono-- I did not know that photograph was taken the day before his death until I read the link.)  Twenty years later maternity photography is a huge business and a source of pride for pregnant women.  It's cool to be pregnant.  So interesting to recognize the change over the last sixty years... my grandmother had to leave teaching in her third month of pregnancy and return after Le Tiemin was born.  Now everyone is showing off their baby bump, from the graceful (which gained Pinterest attention with this beautiful image) to the hysterical. (the perfect word to describe ka-razy uterus-related matters).

I think the quality of sexiness comes from within. It is something that is in you or it isn't and it really doesn't have much to do with breasts or thighs or the pout of your lips.

Sophia Loren

This image (only 3 inches tall and buried in the middle of the magazine) in Glamour September 2009 caused a huge uproar .  Very interesting to think about why.

I love these round little lip balms from Eos: petrolatum and paraben-free and so easy to find when blindly fumbling in your purse!

Lady Gaga's bubble dress, bubble piano

Lady Gaga inspired NYE look?
Rachel Zoe metallic jacquard bubble dress

The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist.             

  It is a miracle.

Martha Graham