HSG

Following in the footsteps of one of the nation's most revered sons, Italy's great plus-size retailer, Elena Miro, is taking the unprecedented step of introducing Classical beauty into . . . China.

And as the current ElenaMiro.cn cover page indicates, Barbara Brickner is to be the company's aesthetic emissary in opening up this foreign land to full-figure fashion.

This may be the greatest challenge yet to the subversive power of the timeless feminine ideal.

As we quoted in a contemporary review, the 2004 "body love" issue of Marie Claire magazine featured a story titled "Women's Ideal Bodies--Then and Now," which offered the following observation specifically about the ideological situation of women in China, after Mao's ascent in 1949:

"With the rise of communism, femininity and softness were discouraged," Dr. Brownell explains. "A masculine ideal was associated with revolutionary fervor and was emulated because it is also associated with hard work, a communist ideal."

This has been the governing ideology in China since 1949. One would think that a half-century of such conditioning would have created an impenetrable ideological . . . wall, in the minds of the populace.

But then again, this is the level of beauty that Elena Miro will be offering its newfound clients:

How will fifty years of political indoctrination fare against this timeless ideal?

We would have to say that the revolution doesn't stand a chance against the (aesthetic) restoration.

We wish Elena Miro every success in bringing "femininity and softness" to a land that has been deprived of it for far too long . . .

- ElenaMiro.CN