Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: New Mannequins Impact How Shoppers See, Buy Clothes, 11/22/04
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec04/mannequins_11-22.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What makes you want to buy a particular item of clothing?

2. Do you think the mannequins that model clothes are the same size as real people?

3. How do you feel about yourself when you look at models in magazines and mannequins in stores?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What changes have been noted in clothing displays recently?

Clothing retailers have begun to display their wares on shapelier mannequins and pants forms. Tight, low-rise jeans hug the 38-inch hips of the voluptuous pants forms. Plus-sized mannequins now appear in sizes up to 20, well above those of the traditional sizes 2 to 6.

2. Why have these changes been made?

Shops that sell clothing will do whatever they can to boost sales, and shapely mannequins appear to be doing the trick for many retailers. Women apparently like seeing clothes on more voluptuous frames, since the displayed clothes are hot sellers.

"Anything we put on the mannequin, people buy it," clothing retailer Fredy Shabani told The New York Times. "The women love them. They see the pants look good."

3. Briefly explain how the "ideal" image of women's beauty has evolved over history.

Starting with the extreme hourglass frame of the Victorian era, women began to embrace the skinny, boyish "flapper" look of the 1920s. In the 1940s and '50s the size 14 Marilyn Monroe Hollywood "bombshell" ideal was the rage, followed by the slender, leggy "Twiggy" look in the 1960s. In the 1980s, women climbing the corporate ladder influenced a period of more masculine, big-shouldered styles.

The "ideal" female shape in the 1990s reached perhaps its most emaciated incarnation, with what was sometimes called "heroine chic," supposedly influenced by the skeletal quality of a drug addict's body. To achieve this, women and girls seeking "perfect" bodies often developed eating disorders, emulating fashion models who typically were 5 inches taller and yet weighed about 25 pounds less than the average woman.

4. According to fashion trend watchers, where are these new ideas in fashion coming from?

Fashion trend watchers credit American pop and urban cultures for the rise of the bigger mannequins.

Rap artist Sir Mix-a-Lot declared that he appreciated large posteriors in the 1992 hit song "Baby Got Back." Actress/singer Jennifer Lopez drew raised eyebrows for flaunting her well-proportioned derriere, and R&B group Destiny's Child produced the song "Bootylicious" in tribute to feminine curves and sexuality. Rap artists Queen Latifah and Missy Elliot showed the world that stars can be big and beautiful … and sexy.

5. What have some critics said about the new fashion trends?

However, some people see the emphasis on a rounder rump as another step toward cultural degradation.

Michael Steward, executive vice president of mannequin design company Adel Rootstein USA told The New York Times, "It's not creating an image of a woman as an elegant creature. It's a little bit down and dirty, a little crass."

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Some people say that people are more likely to buy something if the mannequin modeling the clothing looks very beautiful and aspirational - many would want their bodies to look like that ideal though it is often very unrealistic. Others say that the opposite is true. People are more likely to buy something if the mannequin is realistic and looks more like average people. What do you think? Explain your answer.

2. Why do you think the standard or "ideal" for beauty has changed throughout history? What impacts these changes in our culture?

3. Do you like the new popular fashions that showcase tight clothing and low-rise jeans? Why or why not?

Write a 500-800 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org]. Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.