The New Model Citizens

I'm feeling just a tiny bit sad for the super-model set. So sorry Cindy Crawford, aw shucks Heidi Klum, too bad Elle McPherson. Your years of living on a diet of lettuce leaves and food aromas could be losing their luster. Girls, it looks like your size zero jeans may not be adding up for advertisers. Blame it on the latest trend in marketing: reality advertising.

It's like the revenge of the nerds and it's come to a billboard, newspaper and woman's magazine near you. It's the revenge of the average American woman... who happens to be very much like me. We are about 5 foot 4 and 152 pounds. Okay, I'm a little above average. I won't tell you which way. But, finally mainstream marketers are making us average gals into stars.

The biggest splash came from the Dove soap folks. They're hoping to clean up by using more “realistic women" to sell some firming cream. No doubt you've caught that comparatively portly posse in their skivvies adorning Dove billboards. Although I think it's a bit of a white wash.

At first blush I was on totally on board with that "you go girl!" bandwagon. And I give great credit to the Dove damsels, Stacey, Gina, Lindsey, Julie and Sigrid for strutting their stuff in, shall I say, such wide-bodied forums. Honestly, if television puts on ten extra pounds, how much does a 6-foot bus-stop poster add? Or a 30-foot billboard? These curvaceous beauties prove that a size ten is just as good as a Bo Derek 10.

But, their average-ness isn't all that average. They don't have a dimple or a pimple in sight. They have perfect skin. No bad hair days here. Their under-garments are sparkling white. These sistahs sport no cellulite. Even super model Jerry Hall has been immortalized in the archives of the National Enquirer with a cottage cheese thigh sighting. And it must be true, she didn't sue.

As much as these Dove dames are selling us on beauty coming in all shapes and sizes, they're still selling a product with a promise to pretty much change the way we look. Frankly though, if I'm going to shell out hard earned dough, I don't really want the end result to be someone more like me than say, Tyra Banks. I want my money to afford me the illusion that all that slathering is going to make me feel like Cindy or Heidi or Elle. Not Sigrid, the not so fabulous girl next door.

But it seems that the not so fab chicks and I are becoming more than a tad bit trendy. Now that we've progressed from the Pepsi generation to the Pepcid generation, that juggernaut of cool and affordable fashion GAP is tailoring a store just for us. So the GAP is opening a store for us boomers who need something slightly larger than the bacon strip skirts our daughters are wearing. Seems that big hips are now hip. Even Nike has an add campaign that is heralding thunder thighs and big butts. But, I’m not sure how long us regular gals will be in vogue. Until I see more wide-bodies on the runways of Paris than the runways of LAX, I’m not going to believe this trend is really taking off.