Woman As Design

While God did most certainly create woman, we finished the job. This is the subject of Woman as Design, my new book which applies the experience of a working life spent writing about the design of buildings, products and cars to the most familiar, yet still mysterious, objects of all : the female body. It asks (and I hope answers) the question : if woman was designed, what was the brief to the designers ? Sure, biology established a lot of givens, but a lot of what we see when we look at a woman is pure artifice. What inspired this ?

The thought came to me over dinner when my wife was discussing the shortcomings – aesthetic and ergonomic - of a new hand-held vacuum (although, in fact, cyclonic) cleaner. This, admittedly very convenient device, is grotesquely over-wrought, ugly and awkward. She said, wearily, that no product designer on the planet could ever get near to designing anything which so artfully combined function and beauty as the area between a woman’s legs. Sure, this may not be a subject for the squeamish or the emotionally under-developed, but as an observation it is resonantly true. So I started thinking, God has done a terrific job with women…..but what has culture added to it ?

Take one of the most prominent women in contemporary life , Michelle Obama. How can her powerful images be understood in terms of design ?

Michelle Obama has a classic callipygian figure. This is the word the Greeks had for “fat bottom”. But it was not an insult : it was a commendation. Obama’s careful wardrobe selection manages at the same time to emphasize these posterior curves without unhelpfully exaggerating them. Additionally, she does body sculpture. Long gym sessions doing grip flip tricep pushdowns and hammer curls have added to exiting and impressive statuesque qualities.

Woman as Design is about womanids. To take an educated pleasure in the shape and style of women is not belittling. On the contrary, it is elevating. Let’s not forget that it was a woman who designed the first bra. And Caresse Crosby knew that bras are, in fact , for men. If you are a woman, there may be more efficient ways of containing the unruly movement of your breasts.

So, yes, God created woman. But that was only the starting point. Eve had not discovered grip flip tricep pushdowns. Or tights.