After sparking many debates, from as tiny as Gladiator Sandals vs Havaianas, to Anna Wintour vs Grace Coddington, it brought up, again, the old issue – the models and their figures (or lack of) in the high fashion world.

Instead of hearing women moan, fight and procrastinate on the issue, we stuck it to the men, and asked them honestly, what do you think? Our friend Richard Leyland was brave enough to give us the male perspective on the ongoing debate of Size Zero vs Size Hero…

“On page 194 of the September issue of US Glamour magazine there is a picture of a near-naked model named Lizzie Miller. She’s “plus size”, meaning normal sized, and you can see a small roll of fat on her tummy. The picture has provoked one of those periodic media storms where we consider the effect of all those retouched and unattainable images that pad out the glossies.

The debate is female. Women are reacting to images of women in magazines that are aimed at women. It’s a closed loop, broken only by the occasional man on the inglorious Photoshop throne. But what about a male point of view?

First of all, it’s important to acknowledge the absurdity of it all. Almost all images of women in the glossies have been retouched. Wrinkles, spots, fat, stretch marks and the other unfortunate signposts of a normal life are removed. Even the world’s most beautiful celebrity women, are given such treatment, in case we should think they’re in some way like us. Behind this is the truism that women buy these magazines for reasons of aspiration and fantasy. Another interpretation is that the glossies are funded by advertisers, who have discovered that they can sell their aspirational wares by making women feel bad about themselves. She’s skinnier than me, she’s more beautiful than me, I must fix myself.

I occasionally pick through these magazines. There’s no point in pretending - My interest in celebrity and ladies fashion is soundly trumped by my sexuality: I’m just looking at the pretty women.

But they’re odd, these magazine women. Sexless. The perfect combination of the perfect shaped body on the perfect face, beaming a perfect megawatt smile at the photographer’s lens, is oddly dull. Even Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé, those standard-bearers for the fuller figure, are as sexless as stone. Their grim-faced determination to define and embody sex completely undermines their ability to do so.

Still, I’m dancing around the issue here. The truth is that the airbrushed wonders are of little interest because they’re nothing like the women I’ve dated or the women I fancy. Photoshop means they’re literally unreal, but worse than that, they’re personally unreal. I don’t know them or people like them.

Lizzie Miller is attractive. Glamour magazine has stumbled on a truth that most men discovered years ago: women who are comfortable in their own skin are particularly sexy. I’ve loved women with tummies like hers. The picture invites the viewer to think about the model. She’s relaxed, smiling and I wonder, what is she like? Her appealing body is another means to this end. This is the richness of the image, compared to the usual stark-stare of Nicole Kidman, Victoria Beckham, et al.

I should acknowledge my own body image in all this. If I have a six-pack, it’s hiding beneath a couple of inches of tummy fat, and I haven’t seen the inside of a gym in some years. I’m not immune to magazine pictures of muscled male-torsos, but the women in my life have always reassured me that this is an overrated ideal. They like normal men, real men. Thank goodness.

With luck, the picture of Lizzie Miller will speed the day when women are similarly reassured."

Check out more from Richard at his website: www.richardleyland.com

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