Nothing graceful about this.

So the big chit-chat today in the fashion world came about when Grace Winnfield put out a call for models, or "muses" as she calls them. What's the big deal? Well, Grace had very specific body measurement requirements. And unfortunately, those requirements are just crazy thin.

Height: At least 75 but preferrable is 80-85 or so.

Body thickness: less than 7
Body fat 0 preferred but no more than 7


Whoa, what? Even as a slender avatar myself, the body fat to 0 thing scares me. Hey, even in the physical world, you need body fat to, you know, LIVE. In the SL world, you need it to not look so freakishly scary because of our avatar mesh. And at that height, the body fat to 0 and no more than 7 as thickness is going to look scary.

She went on to give more measurements:

Torso Muscles should be less than 40
Shoulders should be proportionate but usually less than 50.
Breast size: LESS THAN 40 PLEASE

Wow. Even my smaller av has boobs of 55, and 50 is usually as small as I'll go because anything else looks wrong on me. And my torso muscles are around 45. I'm starting to feel like a cow!

leg length.. LONG!! somewhere between 80 and 95 is usually good... mine are 89.

Oh holy.... what?? You want someone that tall with legs THAT long?! I'll admit my legs are long, 75 on the scale, but that's so certain boots fit properly. If I had a leg length of 89 on my normal avatar...yikes.

So Gogo, who was the first person to point this out, did a blog post showing some avatars in their new Gracie shapes. I got it in my head to do one as well, since I don't actually tweak my everyday shape all that much, but I do have a number of different sized shapes.

Using the Gracie measurements, this is what I ended up looking like. My regular avatar is next to it.




As you can see, on a regular basis, my avatar is slender. Honestly, I've made her body almost as "average" as possible to avoid having to adjust clothing too much. Plus, when I was much much smaller and shorter, I had a number of things custom made to fit my body, and keeping these proportions meant that I didn't have to adjust too much. It's laziness on my part. ;) But on the whole, I believe that my avatar is fairly in proportion and I'm quite happy with her.

Putting on the Gracie shape scared me. As someone with RL eating disorders and body disorders, it scared me to death. Suddenly I felt fat. No, I literally FELT fat putting on my everyday, slender, fairly proportionate shape. I had to sit and think and calm myself back down. Luckily a friend of mine had decided to come over to check out the chickens, and we sat and talked for a while about other things and that distracted me until I felt better again. But even now looking at the photo...

I understand modeling. I understand modeling in SL. I know that when choosing models, designers probably do want a specific sized avatar to best show off their clothing and so that they won't have to do too many adjustments. But this? Very very tall and very very thin? THIS is what will fit your clothing? Well I'm sorry, but that's not an average body shape in SL. If I hadn't been freaking out, I would have done a side view shot so you all could see how the Gracie shape is not allowed any kind of butt due to system skirts. I have a skirt shape too, but it's still not this thin. And if that's the only kind of body that will fit the clothing, then I'm afraid that this is a store that I could never shop in. Not that I think I ever have before.

I have friends of all shapes and sizes. Most are shorter than me, [I'm 6'1 in barefeet these days], some are much taller. All of them have curves.




I guess by Gracie standards, none of us could be her models.

Yes, I am a slender avatar. But I have body fat. I have body thickness. I have boobs, and butt and hips and love handles and saddlebags. I like my avatar. She doesn't make the RL me feel ashamed of my body [well, usually. I have my moments.] and for someone to come in here with their anorexic, out of proportion models...it doesn't sit right with me.

You can be slender, petite, curvy, tall, whatever - if you keep it all in proportion, it's all beautiful.

I have to go shake off this icky body feeling now.