Saving Private Ryan

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Ask Hadley: Why do shop mirrors make me look thinner?

Why do I look thinner in the mirrors of some shops' fitting rooms than others? Sometimes I feel like I am at the fairground, not in a shop on Oxford Street. Daphne Eliot, by emailAnd that is just where you're going wrong, Daph. Oxford Street is a fairground now. Come one, come all, and see the unique freaks who can still afford to shop in this country! See the Russian billionaire's "close friend" head down New Bond Street in search of Gucci! Marvel at the bonused-up banker's daughter as she heads straight to the designer handbags section of Selfridges! Gasp at the footballer's wife shopping as if on amphetamines at Topshop! Your fairground reference is apt in another way, too. Obviously, everyone's first socio-cultural fairground touchstone is the movie Big, the seminal film that marked the last of Tom Hanks' era of greatness (Splash, Bachelor Party) before slipping into smug tedium (Saving Private Ryan, The Da Vinci Code). It was at a fairground, of course, that little Josh Baskin was transformed from child to overgrown child by the unforgettable Zoltar the Magnificent. Well, many shop mirrors work in a similar way, altering one's physical form beyond all recognition. Certainly one's mother can't believe it (your mother tells you that actually your legs are much stumpier than you seem to think and really, dear, have you not thought about heels? Mrs Baskin - the glorious Mercedes Ruehl - threw Big Josh out), and one's friends go along with it, but mainly out of kindness. ("No, honestly, you can totally work the high waist"; Josh doesn't seem to have any other friends.) Of course, there are benefits: you feel good about yourself, you get to have sex with your rival's grumpy girlfriend and do the piano dance - oh, sorry, your question and Big's plot are beginning to elide in my mind. But the perils outweigh the plusses: you, Daphne, might end up buying something that in the cold, non-funny-mirror light of day, makes you resemble a banana; Josh discovered that he, um, I actually can't remember why he went back to being a kid (he probably missed Mercedes, which is understandable).And, to be fair, you can't blame the shops for resorting to some wibbly-wobbly mirrors. Hell, they're so desperate for some custom now they'd tell you that the clothes cure cancer if they thought they could get away with it. Actually, that's a brilliant idea (if I do say so myself) for a House of Fraser window display. A Daily Mail headline writer could design it, perhaps, using that ever popular Daily Mail question mark: Can These Clothes Cure Cancer? I can see it already, illustrated by a photo of someone quite attractive who may or may not have had the illness at some point in their lives. Quick, Paul Dacre, take out a copyright or they'll all be at it!Why do models all look like freaks - aren't they supposed to be beautiful? Marcus, by emailInspired by the above thoughts regarding the Daily Mail, I have decided that this column today should take that paper and all of its journalistic methods as its source of inspiration. And so, in true Daily Mail stylee, I have consulted with "unnamed but very intimate - their anonymity should in no way cast doubt on their reliability" sources who have assured me that "the reason models have to be so weird looking is so they look thin in photos because film puts on a lot of weight". What, like 50kg? Because, judging from the way models look these days, that's what our sources seem to think. And so we return to a topic that has been trotted out on this page before - How the Fashion Industry Takes a Theory Beyond Any Semblance of Sense Or Reason. One can see this idea at work when it comes to prices, clothes sizes and many, many clothes in general. But sticking with half-starved models, do male designers just hate women and want to punish them? Unlikely - who would pay their wages then? My other favourite theory came from an impressively unashamed homophobic journalist who once assured me it was because all designers are gay and therefore want the models to look like little boys. Because "gay", apparently, is just a fancy word for "paedophile", you know. The truth is, no one knows how or why this whole thing started. So let's at least look at the bright side: if nothing else, they serve as decided rebuttal to all those annoying people who say fashion is just about dressing to please men. Would an industry predicated on sexual attraction treat breasts as an irritating and unnecessary intrusion on design genius? Do heterosexual men prefer hip bones to hips? I think you see what I'm saying. So, um, like, yay!Fashionguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds