It's the fashion, I tell you: big, tall women going out with

In the witty observation of Nicholas Haslam, we encounter more than a remark about society’s fleeting trends: “It’s the fashion, I tell you: big, tall women going out with tiny, tiny men.” Beneath his humor lies an echo of timeless truth—that fashion, whether of dress or of desire, reflects the ever-changing face of culture. His words, though playful, speak of the way humanity continually reshapes its ideals of beauty, balance, and power. For as the ancients knew, every age has its symbols, and in these symbols we see the shifting tides of what the world esteems.

In earlier times, the union of a “big, tall woman” and a “tiny man” might have provoked amusement or scandal, for it challenged the old order—the idea that men must stand above, and women below, not only in height but in stature and influence. Yet Haslam, with the knowing tone of one who has seen the cycles of society turn, reminds us that even these roles are fashions, not laws. What was once mocked may now be admired; what was once taboo may become the very emblem of style. Through his words we glimpse how love and attraction, far from being bound by nature’s measurements, follow the rhythm of human imagination and rebellion.

There was once a queen of Egypt—Cleopatra, small in form but vast in presence—who ruled hearts and kingdoms alike. She took as her lovers men of towering renown: Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, both conquerors of worlds, yet each conquered in turn by her wit, her power, her luminous command. Was she not, in Haslam’s sense, the “tall woman,” and they the “tiny men”? Not in stature, but in spirit. For greatness does not lie in physical height or muscle, but in presence—that ineffable quality that bends the world toward one’s will. Cleopatra’s love affairs, like Haslam’s observation, remind us that in every generation, strength takes new forms, and the dance between the masculine and feminine continually shifts its steps.

To call such pairings a fashion is not to mock them, but to recognize the eternal play of change. Fashion is the mirror of the collective heart—it reveals what we desire, and what we dare to defy. When Haslam speaks of this new trend, he is also speaking of liberation, of a world learning to laugh at its old hierarchies. The “tiny man” no longer hides in shame beside the statuesque woman; the “tall woman” no longer diminishes herself to make her partner seem greater. Together they stand as a sign that love, when true, has no need of proportion—it thrives in contrast, in the harmony of difference.

The ancients would have recognized this truth under another name: symmetry. For to them, symmetry was not sameness but balance—the union of opposing forces that creates beauty and strength. Just as the sun needs the horizon to set, so too does power need gentleness, height needs grounding, and dominance finds its grace in humility. Haslam’s jest, then, is also a parable: that the world is learning again what the philosophers always knew—that opposites do not weaken each other; they complete one another.

In this way, his remark becomes more than a comment on romance—it becomes a reflection on all human bonds. In friendship, in art, in society, the union of opposites brings renewal. When what is grand pairs with what is small, the result is harmony. When the proud learn from the humble, and the loud learn from the quiet, the world grows richer. So too, in love, when two souls embrace their differences rather than deny them, they create something that neither could build alone.

The lesson, then, is not about height or fashion at all, but about freedom—the freedom to love and live beyond expectation. Haslam’s words, though spoken with a twinkle, carry the wisdom of acceptance: that we must stop measuring worth by the eye and begin to see through the heart. The next time you find yourself judging what seems mismatched, remember this truth of the ancients—that harmony is not uniformity. The universe itself, vast and balanced, was built upon difference: the dark and the light, the sky and the earth, the tall and the small.

So, dear listener, embrace the fashion of fearlessness. Celebrate the strange, the unexpected, the beautiful imbalance that makes life vivid. For love and greatness alike belong not to those who fit the mold, but to those who, like the “big woman and the tiny man,” walk proudly in defiance of it.