VS Stylist Says Kate Upton Is Too Fat; Anja Rubik Is Perfect?
Kate Upton with her proud parents at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition partyWhen my friend Jennifer Lewis posted on my FB page that there was a dustup over Kate Upton representing a move from Sports Illustrated to use curvier models, I brushed off the comment, beliving that SI is a guy’s magazine and it generally prefers curvier models.
Kate snapped by Sports Illustrated Assistant Editor MJ Day in Las Vegas.We featured Kate Upton’s 2011 Victoria’s Secret catalogue photos and noted that she wasn’t in the 2011 fashion show. So what?
Even I gulped when I saw the phone pics of some of Kate’s publicity stunts. With the social conservatives out in full force these days, VS must be extra careful of their affiliations. Pics like Kate’s left may go down with drunken guys at Hooters or even Yale, but they don’t get her credibility with organizations like Victoria’s Secret.
Nevertheless, Kate Upton has done a great job of building her career — and let’s not forget her credentials as an excellent, award-winning equestrian. Kate’s an all-American girl. Just like rebuilding General Motors, such a woman might become popular again. Don’t count her out
As a former VS executive and Fashion Director, I’m pretty calm about the Sports Illustrated Swimwear issue. It drives good traffic and readers stick around our websites, converting to committed direct supporters. I learned long ago that our women readers love the same images as guys do — and we try to filter out the ones they wouldn’t.
You’re Kidding Me | Kate Upton Is Fat?
Bottom line, I’ve been on cruise control over the Kate Upton images until learning that the fashion industry is all holier-than-thou about Kate Upton being fat. OK, could somebody get me about four Advil. Yes, writes The Gloss, ‘Kate Upton Gets Hated On For Being Awesome’ and also Stop Calling Kate Upton Fat (It Makes You Sound Stupid).
Reading along, I’ve changed my mind. Forget the Advil. Please bring me a Bombay Sapphire martini straight up. I don’t believe this crap. The Gloss does not exaggerate.
We could leave it there had Sophia Neophitou, who just signed on as a key person in choosing models and themes for the Victoria’s Secret fashion shows, now absolutely brutalized Kate Upton in the public press this week. The stylist is also the founder of 10 Magazine and a major contributor to fashion’s obsession with size 0 models.
After her comments to the New York Times Style section this week about Kate Upton, Columbus Victoria’s Secret executives must be choking.
We would never use Ms. Upton for a Victoria’s Secret show,” Ms. Neophitou said by telephone last week from London. And, while Ms. Upton has, in fact, modeled on occasion for the company’s catalog, her look, said Ms. Neophitou, is “too obvious” to be featured in what has become the most widely viewed runway show in the world.
“She’s like a Page 3 girl,” Ms. Neophitou said, referring to the scantily clad voluptuous women featured in The Sun, a London tabloid. “She’s like a footballer’s wife, with the too-blond hair and that kind of face that anyone with enough money can go out and buy.”
Simply stated, I am speechless.
I promise you that Sophia Neophitou got a call from Victoria’s Secret’s Ed Razek about her sudden role as a public spokesperson for the Victoria’s Secret brand. Trust me, Ms Neophitou will never speak this candidly about any model again because such snide and brutal comments from this loftly stylist do nothing to help the brand’s image. Nothing.
Carine Roitfeld has enough common sense to never make a statement like this and Roitfeld says she herself prefers the curvier body of a model like Kate Upton or the original Lara Stone.
I find this entire conversation disgusting — to call Kate Upton fat underscores fashion’s irrelevance to women who aren’t little robots marching to the drum of fashion industry people like Neophitou or Karl Lagerfeld, who recently couldn’t keep his mouth shut about Adele. What disgraceful people!
Now that I understand Neophitou’s perspective, it’s clear why Upton wasn’t in the Victoria’s Secret show — being too fat for the haute stylist’s standards.
Models like Anja Rubik are now front and center as Victoria’s Secret’s new sex symbol of 2011? Am I reading this right?
Let’s put the common Kate and haute Anja side-by-side. Remember that fashion monasticism doesn’t believe in visible sexuality in the same way that Sarah Jessica Parker is proud that she never had sex on ‘Sex and the City’.
We’re talking about a different breed of fashion female role model here and sexuality is not part of her mindset.
Make that Bombay Sapphire martini a double please … and don’t count out Kate Upton quite so fast, Sophia Neophitou. Mr Razek may just go around your narrow, authoritative vision. Retro pinups are all the rage in fashion this season.
I understand the female mind way better than you do — and big business in America. Victoria’s Secret doesn’t have a haughty public relationship with American women or the Brits either, now that the brand is crossing the pond.
If they wanted Karl Lagerfeld to bring his articulate stance on fat to the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, they would have ponied up the bucks for him. Let us know how your forthright commentary on Kate Upton works out for you, Sophia. As for Kate Upton — don’t change a thing, my dear — but no more balancing beer on your breasts, okay? Anne
More Kate Upton:
Editorials
Kate Upton | Terry Richardson | GQ US July 2012
Kate Upton & Kellan Lutz | Yu Tsai | Abbot and Main’s Fall 2012 Campaign
Kate Upton | Terry Richardson | Harper’s Bazaar US May 2012 | ‘The Shape of Things’
Walter Iooss & Stewart Shining | 2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
Kate Upton | Yu Tsai | Esquire March 2012
Kate Upton | Beach Bunny Swim Suit – Summer 2012
Kate Upton | Yu Tsai | Beach Bunny Bridal 2011
Kate Upton | GQ Magazine August 2011 | Just the Two of Us
Kate Upton for Victoria’s Secret S/S 2011
Kate Upton by Remi Rebillard | From SI Swimsuit to VS Catalogue
Kate Upton | Michael David Adams | Jenna Leigh Lingerie S/S ‘11
Kate Upton | Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue February 2011
Kate Upton | Eugen Bauder | Yu Tsai | Guess Spring 2011 Accessories
Ellen von Unwerth | Guess Spring 2011 | Elsa, Alyssa, Kate & Silviu
Victoria’s Secret Criticism of Kate Upton
Memo to VS | Sophia Neophitou on Kate Upton Nastygram Gaining Traction
Kate Upton @ Muse Magazine, Says Gisele Is Footballer’s Wife
Share Article | Fri, February 17, 2012 11 Comments | in Models | Celebrity tagged Anja Rubik, Kate Upton, Sports Illustrated, Victoria's Secret, Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, size 0 models
Reader Comments (11)
She'd be perfect if she had a lizard head.
This girl is nowhere near FAT!! This is what a model should look,like.The stick skinny models look sick,frail,and like they are all on drugs.It's NOT SEXY at all being stick thin with no curves,boobs or hardly a body at all. It's so UGLY to see them looking like a bone.KATE is what u call SEXY in all ways shape and form. Stay jus the way u are.U are beautiful abd ur body is beautiful in the shape it's in.Don't feed into all the skinny bullshit it's not what guys want to see is girls are saying ur fat then they are jealous.Girls would kill to have a body like you!!
It's photoshopped !!! Look at her in a live catwalk show her body is gross. After seeing her on the catwalk I realized how much she was photoshopped.
http://www.fhm.com/girls/news/kate-upton-bounced-about-on-the-catwalk-again-81942
Kate is featured in this catwalk video, and I don't find her body to be 'gross' at all. Only a 'gross' minded individual would make such a comment. She also looks pretty fabulous in Muse Magazine this month. I've read reports that Kate gained some weight after the 2011 SI issue, and her friends did an 'intervention' to get her back on track. 'Gross' is not a word we use to describe women's bodies at AOC.
Also, the image at the top of this article was taken at the SI party, and Kate looks great. I only leave your comment BHB to remind us all of the judgements women live with from Catholic bishops to fashionistas. Kate isn't Andrej Pejic, and I find that refreshing, much as I like Andrej.
Pardon? Kate Upton is fat? Where is she fat? Okay, maybe her bottom lip is a bit too pouty and sensuous (!), but really? Fat. I've never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life--and I've got more than a few years under the bridge.
It seems to me that someone who makes such outlandish claims is so disconnected from reality as to make anything she has to say meaningless in the real world where the rest of live. As a man who loves the wide range of female figures, the only remark I can offer to Ms. Neophitou is "If Ms. Upton is fat then you could stand to lose a few yourself."
As for Ms. Upton, all I can say to her is "Marry me."
Kate Upton fat? Ummmm....no. Maybe compared to Anja Rubik but she looks absolutely disgusting. Bones and leather...ugh.
Um...where on earth in that quote does it say that Sophia Neophitou called Kate Upton fat? No seriously, I would like you to point it out--because I'm not seeing it. SHE said "she's like a Page 3 girl", whereas the NYT filled in with the "referring to the scantily clad voluptuous women featured in The Sun" part. SHE was referring to the "too blond hair" and the "kind of face that anyone with enough money can go out and buy". Though I agree that she was rude and unprofessional stating all this to the press, I think it's ridiculous to attack her for "calling Kate Upton fat" when she did no such thing--as you yourself should know since you PUT HER QUOTE IN YOUR POST. If you want to blast anyone, blast the NY Times or Post.
To have curves does NOT mean the curves of your bones. It means actual curves that require actual fat on your body like Kate there. That is beautiful. Although I'm not saying the other girls aren't beautiful, they are in their own way. But they just look terribly sickly. It is Not healthy.
This is why girls are starving themselves these days. To be society's pathetic excuse of "perfect" when it's really not, and societly should be advertising for girls to be themselves, and even prove so through their models. No. Matter. What. Size. You. Are. Every size is beautiful. It's a pathetic shame that others can't see that.
I don't think Kate Upton's body type is the only thing VS and others are dissing on....it's also the way she acts and how she is known to the public. Haven't you seen her Cat Daddy video? And other videos and pictures of her with bikinis falling off? She's a slut! And even if she is, that's what she's making the public think she is. VS models like Miranda Kerr and Adriana Lima are not only beautiful in person but also portrayed beautiful in the public, with no such thing as "cat daddy" whoring videos. That's my opinion, but I think it makes sense. Kate Upton disgusts me because of her sluttiness. And no, she's not fat, but I agree that she is chubby for a swimsuit model. Not saying she has to be dead skinny, but she could lose some chubs on the sides.
She didn't say she was fat at all...
What she said is she is too obvious (over exposed) and has a look that VS does not want (Page 3 girl)