The Skinny.(too-slender women in fashion industry do not depict normal women)(Brief Article)

Shoshanna Lonstein was a peculiarly New York kind of celebrity. She was the teenage girlfriend of Jerry Seinfeld, when everyone watched his TV show. So well known was she in this role that even I, who neither watched the TV show nor went to Moomba (or any of the other then- fashionable spots she frequented), knew who she was. She quickly rose to the level of celebrity where she lost her last name, always appearing in print as "Shoshanna."

"Lonstein" became a discarded appendage, like Wojtyla, Windsor, or Lewinsky.

Gossip columnists often casually linked her with Monica, on the grounds that both women were young, Jewish, and known for their boyfriends. The comparison was grossly unfair to Miss Lonstein, for her lover was not our president, not her boss, and not married, while she, it soon became obvious, was not a dolt who couldn't get a job without Vernon Jordan's help. After Shoshanna and Jerry split up, she went into the fashion business and designed a line of clothes, which has found its niche.

She appeared in an ad in the New York Times in February, modeling one of her bathing suits. I did not recognize her at first (why would I, never having seen her on the beach?). But I was stopped cold by the ad. It was as startling as a story on peace in the Congo, or Clintons telling the truth. The four-inch high woman on my breakfast table had actual thighs, hips, and breasts. Her arms could not be passed through a napkin ring. Her face was round, without Tartar cheekbones, and her expression was neither sullen nor dead. She was, in short, a pretty version of a normal woman.

The ad was doubly provocative, running during Fashion Week, which celebrates one of the city's few thriving industries. Designers show their new collections, and New York asserts its parity with Paris and Milan. Once upon a time a fashion show meant Princess Grace looking at the latest offerings from Chanel. Now a big top rises in Bryant Park behind the public library, and the designers and supermodels (there are no more plain ol' models) get even more ink than they normally do. The buzz of the last Fashion Week was the war between the Brazilians and the Belgians. The allegedly "curvy" Brazilian supermodels, who dominated the catwalks a year ago, were replaced by wan waffle-eaters. After an interregnum of fleshiness, the heroin addict/pedophile victim has resumed her rightful place as the norm of female beauty.

That's what the fashion world was saying. But to the layman, the Brazilian/ Belgian war recalled an argument between Stalinists and Trotskyites, who were both despotic murderers even if they squabbled about socialism in one country. Similarly, the cariocas may have one and a half more curves per torso than Magritte's nieces, but to the average unbiased student of women (i.e., to a man) they all look like survivors of the Donner party. Both sets of young women have mile-high gawksome legs, praying-mantis arms, and hips that would actually be comfortable in a modern coach-class airplane seat. ...