Weighty Issues: Alber Elbaz in the New Yorker

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It's got to be hard to be an pudgy designer, given the way the fashion industry prizes skinniness. Designer Alber Elbaz certainly has a problem with his figure. The brains behind Lanvin, who gets the Ariel Levy profile treatment in this week's New Yorker, "thinks it's a very big deal that he is overweight." That concern, and Elbaz's neuroticism, dominates the profile. But perhaps, Elbaz's body image issues are the secret to his beautiful designs. "Elbaz believes that his creations are a kind of positive to his negative. If he is melancholy and heavy, his clothes are joyful and weightless. It is his job, as he’s configured it, to make women feel special, something he does not quite feel entitled to himself." It's not as if it has to be one or the other—happiness and six-pack abs, or beautiful clothes. A gym addiction and a low-carb diet haven't exactly ruined Marc's career.
· Ladies' Man [New Yorker]