{"id":4162,"date":"2013-03-30T18:08:02","date_gmt":"2013-03-30T18:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=4162"},"modified":"2013-03-30T18:08:02","modified_gmt":"2013-03-30T18:08:02","slug":"curvy-or-slender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=4162","title":{"rendered":"Curvy or slender?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>A war of words has broken out between admirers of voluptuous female figures and those who plump for a more streamlined, traditionally Western, shape.<\/p>\n
\n

“African” curves or an “international” silhouette? On the airwaves and the catwalks of C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, a war of words has broken out between admirers of voluptuous female figures and those who plump for a more streamlined, traditionally Western, shape.<\/p>\n

The young Ivorian singer Princesse Amour is hoping for a hit with her song celebrating “lalas”, the name she has given to slender, small-breasted women.<\/p>\n

Dressed in ultra-tight skinny jeans, she sings over a pounding beat, her lyrics encouraging women to embrace their “little lemons”.<\/p>\n

“I noticed that some girls were embarrassed to have small breasts” and “felt like they had to fake it by stuffing their bras,” she told AFP.<\/p>\n

Her use of the term “lala” is no accident. It’s a reference to “lolo”, the word used to describe voluptuous women by Ivorian musical heavyweight Meiway in his 2000 hit Miss Lolo<\/em>. His latest smash, Wiggle Your Bottom<\/em>, a celebration of big booties, has had the whole of Abidjan shaking their stuff in recent months.<\/p>\n

More “lala” than “lolo”<\/strong>
\nAt a concert last year, Meiway told a handful of Europeans in the crowd: “You white people, you like your women flat and thin. Here, we like them big, with curves.”<\/p>\n

But the aesthetic at the Miss C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire beauty pageant is infinitely more “lala” than “lolo”.<\/p>\n

Victor Yapobi, president of the organising committee, says: “Our beauties comply to international standards: minimum height 1.68m, 90cm around the hips.”<\/p>\n

In Africa, “young women are becoming more and more slender”, he says, pointing out that a slim woman is still considered a marketing plus for brands.<\/p>\n

But away from the podium, old habits die hard.<\/p>\n

“Being thin is synonymous with being sickly and malnourished in African society,” laments Micheline Gueu, a candidate for Miss C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire in a regional heat in the southeastern town of Aboisso.<\/p>\n

Honour the real African woman<\/strong>
\nAt the other end of the scale, however, the “awoulaba” (voluptuous women in the local Baoule language) also complain that their beauty is underrated.<\/p>\n

On International Women’s Day on March 8, the “Awoulaba” beauty contest celebrating curvy women was reinstated after a seven-year lull.<\/p>\n

The crown was taken by Esteve Alexandrine N’Goran, who told the audience of a thousand that she was there to “honour the real African woman”.<\/p>\n

Emotional after her victory, the 38-year-old business woman and mother-of-three said that she wanted to show that women like her were both “beautiful” and “comfortable with themselves”.<\/p>\n

“Roundly Beautiful”, an organisation set up in Abidjan in 2009 to support plus-sized women, lent its backing to the event. The group aims to “rid big women of their complexes” according to its president, Djeneba Dosso.<\/p>\n

But Dosso admits that curves are not just a question of aesthetics. Ivorian women “don’t exercise and eat badly” she said, so her group encourages larger women to break bad habits.<\/p>\n

Celebrated Ivorian artist Augustin Kassi is an inspiration to many. Since 1985 he’s been painting “fat women” as he describes them, in bright, joyful works of art.<\/p>\n

A consistent opponent of what he sees as “cultural alienation”, for him Miss C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire is a symbol of the “voluntary denigration of African beauty”.<\/p>\n

He advocates diversity.<\/p>\n

“The world is made up of different things” he says, paintbrush in hand. “It’s a rainbow.”\u00a0 \u2013 Sapa-AFP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A war of words has broken out between admirers of voluptuous female figures and those who plump for a more streamlined, traditionally Western, shape. “African” curves or an “international” silhouette? On the airwaves and the catwalks of C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, a war of words has broken out between admirers of voluptuous female figures and those who … Continue reading “Curvy or slender?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[2366,2641,2639,2640,2642],"class_list":["post-4162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-ivory-coast","tag-plump","tag-skinny","tag-voluptuous-female-figures","tag-western-beauty"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/ivorianbeauty.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4164,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions\/4164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}