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It's become a strange, post-feminist way for a woman to make a statement or announce a comeback - posing naked for a magazine. Kate Winslet is just the latest celebrity to avail herself of a concept created by Demi Moore. In 1991, Demi proclaimed herself the yummiest of mummies by posing unclad and pregnant for Vanity Fair. Exactly a year later she was on the cover again in nothing but body paint, to show that her lissome body was back and it was business as usual.
Since then it's become a well-trodden route. Lindsay Lohan shrugged off allegations of drug-taking and bulimia, along with her clothes, in a 2006 VF shoot, and responded recently to the continued fascination with her car-crash life by recreating Bert Stern's infamous last, nude shoot of Marilyn Monroe for New York Magazine. Jennifer Aniston posed in an open white shirt for VF after Brad Pitt dumped her, then went topless for GQ after he shacked up with Angelina Jolie. Ange herself is on the cover of this month's W magazine, breastfeeding and indecently beautiful, in photos taken by Brad himself.
But it is Winslet's latest spread - again for VF - that is interesting. Particularly given her past protest when British GQ airbrushed out her curves. Because the iconography for Winslet's VF shoot has been carefully chosen to suggest upmarket sluttishness.
On the cover, Sam Mendes's missus appears, legs crossed and naked save for shoes and an expensive white coat, as sun streams through the window. The pose, the snowy fabric, the cool gaze all recall Sharon Stone's risqué Catherine Trammell in Basic Instinct, while the coat speaks of a certain devil-may-care chic: when Kylie or Kate Moss wears a white coat, men feel subconsciously invited to get it dirty. Meanwhile, the setting and styling evoke thoughts of the lubricious daytime activities of Catherine Deneuve's call girl in Buñuel's Belle de Jour. Winslet's hair has even been bedraggled like Deneuve's, as if she's just been thoroughly raggled in bed.
Inside the magazine, Winslet's nudity is accentuated and fetishised by whorish black stockings and spike heels as she sprawls on a bed of furs, offering up her peachy derrière. The fleshy message here is even clearer than those broadcast by Demi, Lindsay or Jen. This is not Kate Winslet the wife, mother of two and campaigner for real curves. This is Kate Winslet, Hollywood sex siren - naked, expensive but yours for the price of a magazine. Or a ticket to see her new film, of course.
