Sheraah: Thierry Le Goués

The original "I've just finished stuffing my face with Christmas dinner and now I cannot move (or breathe) so I will write a blog" idea was to put up a series of pin-up girl pictures illustrated by the likes of Alberto Vargas and George Petty. I was then going to comment on how one might take advantage of the extra Christmas fat come January by reorganising it into the right places (bustier and a pair of control tights can work wonders... although I can only speak personally of the former).

Anyway, I digress. As you will see (BELOW), although the illustrations are amazing the “All American” girls in the pictures get boring after a while which prompted me to go in search of some "African-American" or "Latina" pin-up girls to make things a bit more interesting. However, there were literally None! This is obviously no surprise because of “the times” but still, this made me sad. I thought about pinning my hair up into a quiff, donning my vintage white lace bodice, seamed stockings and a pair of Mary Jane's and then perching on a satin cushion with my bottom cocked up and posting that alongside the rest... but then I remembered that my older brother reads this blog.

So instead I went off on a merry tangent and looked to the French photographer Thierry Le Goues who created a book called 'Soul' in 1999. This sensual and evocative book features nude pictures of fashion models of African descent including Naomi Campbell, Iman, Alek Wek and Lauren Pascale. Not exactly akin to the classic pin-up illustrations no, but the point is the same. The shape of the female physique is a fundamentally beautiful thing with incredible power. Curves, curves, glorious curves, I really think another mince pie will do me good.