Food Porn and Vanity Jeans
So yesterday I paid my first visit to the new Whole Foods Market in Kensington. It's the flagship store of the HUGE American food store. Not quite organic, not quite as ethical as you'd imagine, but having read all the reports I decided to give it the once over.
It's on the site of the old Barker's department store, which during my Evening Standard years, was my local shop as their offices are above it. I couldn't imagine how a grocery shop could fill that huge space but my god it does!
The idea is that everything in there, while not being necessarily organic, is locally sourced or at least leaving a smaller carbon footprint than yer Tesco's or Asda's.
I'm no expert on environmental issues, but surely there's no need to stock Evian water when you have British mineral waters available as well? I guess they'd argue its about choice, but it seems this shop is neither one thing nor t'other.
What it is tho, is a temple to marketing. Everything looks so damn delicious and sexy!
My food intake has decreased dramatically in the last five months, but even I was getting a thrill looking at the gazillion different kinds of cheese, olives, nuts and seeds! Didn't buy any of it tho, just looking filled me up. It truly is food porn!
From there I went into Uniqlo - a kinda Japanese Gap with lower prices - and treated myself to a pair of jeans. As my ones from four years ago fitted, I figured I'd go for a size 12 again, tho didn't expect them to fit. I thought my old ones only fit cos I'd probably stretched them out when I was wearing them before.
I tried em on and they did fit, in fact they fit better than the old Levis, not loose exactly, but very, very comfy, in a "no need to hold my breath doing em up" kinda way. Of course I bought em, cos I'm a sucker for any kind of flattery and they do look really good on.
When I got home I got to thinking, have the sizes changed over the years? The last time I can genuinely remember being a size 12 was when I was 18 and had a mini-bout of anorexia. I'd just moved to London and felt really fat and provincial, so I stopped eating. At nine stones a size 12 was a good fit.
Today I am a fair way off being nine stones, and a 12 is still a good fit. How can that be?
Perhaps clothes manufacturers have realised that by making stuff bigger and making the numbers smaller we will buy more. Surely they couldn't be that cynical? Could they?
It's on the site of the old Barker's department store, which during my Evening Standard years, was my local shop as their offices are above it. I couldn't imagine how a grocery shop could fill that huge space but my god it does!
The idea is that everything in there, while not being necessarily organic, is locally sourced or at least leaving a smaller carbon footprint than yer Tesco's or Asda's.
I'm no expert on environmental issues, but surely there's no need to stock Evian water when you have British mineral waters available as well? I guess they'd argue its about choice, but it seems this shop is neither one thing nor t'other.
What it is tho, is a temple to marketing. Everything looks so damn delicious and sexy!
My food intake has decreased dramatically in the last five months, but even I was getting a thrill looking at the gazillion different kinds of cheese, olives, nuts and seeds! Didn't buy any of it tho, just looking filled me up. It truly is food porn!
From there I went into Uniqlo - a kinda Japanese Gap with lower prices - and treated myself to a pair of jeans. As my ones from four years ago fitted, I figured I'd go for a size 12 again, tho didn't expect them to fit. I thought my old ones only fit cos I'd probably stretched them out when I was wearing them before.
I tried em on and they did fit, in fact they fit better than the old Levis, not loose exactly, but very, very comfy, in a "no need to hold my breath doing em up" kinda way. Of course I bought em, cos I'm a sucker for any kind of flattery and they do look really good on.
When I got home I got to thinking, have the sizes changed over the years? The last time I can genuinely remember being a size 12 was when I was 18 and had a mini-bout of anorexia. I'd just moved to London and felt really fat and provincial, so I stopped eating. At nine stones a size 12 was a good fit.
Today I am a fair way off being nine stones, and a 12 is still a good fit. How can that be?
Perhaps clothes manufacturers have realised that by making stuff bigger and making the numbers smaller we will buy more. Surely they couldn't be that cynical? Could they?
Labels: Misc and TV
posted by JoJo Smith at Thursday, July 05, 2007
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