Alana Zimmer | Michael Schwartz | Black #12

Alana Zimmer, photographed here by Michael Schwartz for Black #12 magazine, reminds us that a 16 BMI thin physique remains a key expression of female beauty in fashion. And as a young reader reminded me, there are women who are just this thin, and they are beautiful, too.

A few years ago, when Dove broke their real-women campaign, then marketing director for Dove Phillippe Harousseau expressed regret to me that the Dove campaign hadn't used an exceptionally thin woman, to reflect the wide range of body types in the female population.

Thin is tyranny in fashion, on the one hand. But the challenge is inclusion of a wide-range of body types. My initial reaction on seeing these photos was to disagree with Joanna at Fashion Gone Rogue's adjective that Zimmer is "sensual" in the photos.  But that's the wrong stance on my part. What we want to do is break through the tyranny of a single stereotype, creating one instead that has a wide range of beauty