Celebrity Style!
Kim Kardashian secret weapon SPANX revealed under red dress?
[Apr. 16]
Spanx you very much, paparazzi photogs, for revealing what should never be seen on a cover model with the red press upskirt shot. In a wild twist on what women wear to look good, we now have a brand marketing dream story on what women wear to perfrom better (while looking good, of course).
Reality television starlet Kim Kardashian was caught wearing Spanx under her dress to tame her beastly thighs in a picture you can see at Gawker and here from Hollywood Life. We’re not sure if she was trying to look thinner, since she and sister Khloe Kardashian have been complaining recently about looking too fat, or if she just thinks its a hot new-old style, like retro-wear — the modern day girdle — to control lumpy leg tops and increase her animal magnetism.
Spotting Kim Kardashian in Spanx was definitely a bot of a dream crusher for her male followers, as we all like to daydream the lovely Miss Kardashian is naturally perfect. Besides, wasn’t her plastic surgeon supposed to have fixed all that hot mess thing she had going on with her backside and thighs a while ago — or was that just a rumor? That Kim Kardashian had lyposuction and thigh sculpting procedures to make her look all the more perfect with and without her designer clothes present?
As for Spanx, the brand… guys might not really know the secret weapon women wear — but anyone drug to watch the chick movie Bridget Jones Diary knows that while a girl might look smoking hot in her dress that once the clothes come off she may be wearing enormous panties.
If you take a girl home and find yourself getting into wild adventures, you might come across a beast in Spanx. But have no fear — it does not mean that a woman (no matter how rough around the edges without the wonder garments) has a figure that is less than 100% perfect. It just means she is interested in looking great by embracing the latest celebrity fashion trends even if it might be uncomfortable. Guys, it means she cares about what you thought of how she looked, even more than her own comfort.
That means girls who wear Spanx are giving, even when their own version of tightie whitie underwear has no give.
And speaking of give, Spanx wearers have suffered their own troubles.
For instance, a Vermont Public Radio story highlighted a young soccer player wearing Spanx. She came to the doctor complaining of numbness and tingling in her thigh, but the doctor considered Spanx as implausible for such a young girl. It turned out, however, the girl was in fact wearing Spanx, and that was the source of her leg pain. Many athletes wear these types of compression garments with the mistaken belief that they help improve perfromance and reduce muscle soreness.
But, no, our green celebrity friend Kim Kardashian probably is more worried about looking good than perfroming well, if Jam (Pump It Up) is any testament. Studies have shown that compression garments like Spanx do nothing for perfromance, unless by perfromance one means the psychological boost one feels from looking good. [Hint for Kim Kardashian: You look good already, hon.]
The New Yorker has a story about the creator of Spanx:
The resulting product has sold nine million pairs since October of 2000, when Blakely started Spanx. Before Spanx, shapewear was associated with the aging and the piteous. Now unmentionables are objects of boasting. Mentions Oprah Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kim Kardashian.
As a male writer, I will say this, though.
The fact that younger stars like Kim Kardashian are wearing garments like Spanx is a little troubling, because it is sending a message to a younger generation of women that it’s more important to look fit than to be fit, and that appearances are more important than personality. A word of advice to the younger female generation: lose the Spanx. There may come a time when you really need them, but that time is not now.
Real men are into woman who embrace natural beauty just as much as we love to oogle celebrities.
GREEN CELEBRITY STATS: KIM KARDASHIAN
Kim Kardashian is a beautiful (without the Spanx) green celebrity who is involved in causes ranging from AIDS research to multiple sclerosis research and treatment. She supports the Salvation Army, Mattel Children’s Hospital, and the True Colors Fund. The star of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and perhaps soon to be in a movie role with John Travolta (Gotti: Three Generations), we feel Kim Kardashian has plenty of star to shine long before she needs something like Spanx.