Kate Upton Sports Illustrated Latest Cover Model
Read Time:4 Minute, 5 Second
A nineteen year old girl from Florida is the new cover model for this year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Her name is Kate Upton, and she is a lovely blonde neophyte, sporting that SI combination of health and sexiness.
Kate has been featured in Guess ads as the company’s official “face” for 2010-2011, and has modeled for Dooney and Burke and Garage. Ms. Upton was born in St. Joseph, Michigan and is the niece of congressman Fred Upton.
Early in her life, Kate Upton was an equestrian, showing for the American Paint Horse Association. She won numerous awards, including being named the 13 and under all around champion at the APHA World Championship Show. Ms. Upton attended a casting call in Miami in 2008 and was signed by Elite the same day. She moved to New York and began modeling, represented by one of the best agencies in the business, IMG.
Kate Upton’s Sports Illustrated cover is creating a bit of controversy, however. In researching this article, I looked at two photos at the New York Daily News’s website. One has Ms. Upton walking in a runway show, wearing a bikini, posted next to her SI cover. Ms. Upton’s figure in the runway photo looks a bit more curvaceous, even more normal than a typical model. With measurements of 33D-25-36, she will never be a typical model, but even Sports Illustrated seems, at least to my untrained eye, to have made some minor adjustments to Kate Upton’s physique.
Her breasts seem smaller (yes, smaller), her waist looks trimmed and the bikini bottoms SI put her in are so miniscule that, to be honest, it looks as if she doesn’t have genitalia. Her face even looks a bit thinner. If Sports Illustrated did Photo Shop its cover model, it’s no big deal, right? No professional model looks in a photo the way they look in real life. Blemishes are removed, redness is minimized, circles under the eyes magically disappear and models who may be a size 4 in person are suddenly a size 0 in the pages of Vogue or Glamour. But Sports Illustrated has always loved athletic girls, coltish young creatures with long legs and broad shoulders and curves. Lots of curves.
As a former bulimic, it gives me pause to think that Sports Illustrated has joined with fashion magazines in augmenting the figure of a 19 year old girl to fit some “norm.” The norm, in case anyone is wondering, is size 12. Most women in America are a size 12. Some are smaller, some a larger, but we’re all beautiful. And when Kate Upton, an exceptionally gorgeous young woman, appears closer to that norm in a runway photo than in her SI cover, it sends a tiny shiver down my spine.
Women in America suffer from eating disorders at a much higher rate than other countries. Why? Because society creates an environment where phrases like “Size zero is the new size two” are the mantra on Bravo’s Housewives shows, and models who are 5’10” tall weigh 90 pounds, and that environment creates, in turn, women who look in the mirror and see not beauty but fat. We see hips that are too big or a tummy with a bit of a pooch or thighs that curve. We don’t see what we are, we only see what some designer or photographer or celebrity “tells” us we’re supposed to be.
Kate Upton is without a doubt a stunningly beautiful young woman, with large breasts, a normal sized waist and a woman’s hips. Again, my eye is untrained, but when I looked at those two photos at NYDN, I saw one of a lovely young woman, strutting proudly down a runway, curves and all. Then I saw one of a lovely young woman with a few less curves, smaller breasts, wearing impossible-to-wear bikini bottoms. And I hope and pray that young girls and women look at the runway photo and say “She’s so pretty! She has a waist, and her back has a little pooch where it meets her top, hey I have that! She’s looks like a real person!” If those young girls and women see the SI cover, my only hope is that if it has indeed been Photo Shopped, someone points that out, and tells them “That’s been changed, you know, look at the other photo, focus on that.”
Kate Upton deserves congratulations in following in the footsteps of such other curvaceous models as Christie Brinkley and Tyra Banks in being featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. She looks better in the runway photo, though.
Thanks to Wikipedia for information on Kate Upton’s early life, and The New York Daily News for the photos.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
that’s because kate upton’s breasts did shrink, and got saggier. they made her work out and lose some weight needlessly, which shrank her breasts. hopefully they will return.