I can't recall exactly when Martha Stewart came on the scene. Forty-ish years ago, I'm guessing.
I remember seeing her on TV, and pretty much every time she opened her mouth I thought 'how ridiculous.'
There was the hand-made wrapping paper, made using potato prints. The factory-perfect Christmas cookies that would have taken a mere mortal a kabillion hours to make, and which wouldn't have come out anywhere near as fabulous as Martha's. (Is that a reindeer or an elf???)
Then there was the revelation that she changed the duvet covers, curtains, and pictures on the wall in all the rooms of her home every season.
What?
Even if I wanted to do something more theme-y for Christmas than throw the red and green plaid table cloth on the dining room table, and plunking the picture taken the moment before I stopped believing in Santa on the mantel, where would I store everything? And wouldn't it cost a lot? An awful lot?
For everyone who found Martha inspirational, there's got to be another who finds the thought of trying to keep anywhere near to up with her completely depressing. Probably the same person.
Secretly, of course, as much as I liked to make fun of Martha Stewart, I actually liked a lot of her design. Middle brow. Middle age. Whatever.
I like her stuff, and have a bit of it around.
The platter and bowl with the lemons and the blue sponge print trim? Just the thing for hosting Easter dinner.
It may not be a full house beautiful overhaul for the holiday, but it's something. Something functional, something pretty, something affordable (great sale at Macy's).
Then Martha Stewart went to prison for insider trading.
She indeed done wrong. But her wrongdoing was pretty Mickey Mouse by swindler standards. I pretty much felt that if she hadn't been Martha Stewart, she wouldn't have spent a day in the hoosegow, let alone five months.
Anyway, I believe in second chances, so I was happy to see that she rebuilt her reputation and empire once she did her time.
At the age of 81.
I can't quite figure out what that swimsuit is. But I love the orange schmatta that's so artfully draped.
Sure, the picture may have been airbrushed and filtered. But those 81 year old boobs are doing what 81 year old boobs tend to do. They're sagging.
“I am so thrilled to be on the cover,” Stewart wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of herself clad in a white, deeply plunging one-piece suit.
She added: “My motto has always been: ‘when you’re through changing, you’re through,’ so I thought, why not be up for this opportunity of a lifetime? I hope this cover inspires you to challenge yourself to try new things, no matter what stage of life you are in.” (Source: WaPo)
The swimsuit cover is getting mixed reactions.
I'm on team "You go, girl old lady!" And I'm in good company. Jennifer Garner commented "You are amazing."
But there's plenty of oppo commentary out there.
Martha isn't showing us honest aging. She's privileged, pampered, and has obviously had "work" done. (For the record, Stewart says that she hasn't had plastic surgery, but does admit to having work done by a dermatologist: plumping, botoxing...) The naysayers cry that the cover-girling of Martha is ageist and classist, that she's always been blonde and beautiful, and that putting her on the cover just plays to ageist, classist, racist, sexist, ableist definitions of beauty.
Yawn...Maybe standards of beauty are arbitrary, but I'm fine with having beautiful people do the modeling.
However airbrushed and photoshopped, filtered and plumped, Martha Stewart may have been for her cover, she credits good genes for her looking so good. And she prepared for that shot:
Stewart told the “Today” show...that she had eliminated bread and pasta from her diet and went to Pilates classes every other day in preparation for her January photo shoot. It took place in the Dominican Republic, where she tried on nine different bathing suits and was snapped by photographer Ruven Afanador.
“To be on the cover at my age was a challenge, and I think I met the challenge,” she said on “Today,” adding: “It was kind of fun.”
“To me, it is a testament to good living, and I think that all of us should think about good living. … The whole aging thing is so boring.”
Well, yeah, "the whole aging thing" is kind of boring. But it's inevitable - at least if you'd prefer living to dying.
But, what the hell.
She's a woman of a certain age+, who grew up middle-class in New Jersey and, at a time when few women did so, built an incredible career for herself. And if the capstone of that career ends up being a cover on the SI swimsuit edition, well, good for her.
All hail, Martha Stewart.
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