(This absolutely stunning sample by Charlotte Taylor - sent to try on for size before I modelled for her lookbook - seemed to epitomise the notion of high glamour. I then found it rather subversive that the deep back allowed for framing of my neck-to-waist scar. I felt that I was inhabiting two roles at once: conventional elegance in the dress and unconventional beauty in the line running down my spine.)
According to a piece in the Guardian, up to 90% of women have experienced “body-image dissatisfaction”. Such a statistic is a sad reflection of the corrosive relationship between physical looks and self-worth. It demonstrates the power of the message – promoted through various channels - that we’re never attractive enough. In the West, we’re a highly visual culture, bombarded with endless images. ‘Bombarded’ suggests an attack, but even if photos, adverts and video clips aren’t reaching out to administer a quick slap, they still damage perceptions of appearance. I think that discontent with the way one looks can sometimes be traced back to more personal explanations and roots, but ideals promoted in the media still exert a powerful influence – whether in an image of a celebrity lauded for losing her post-baby weight or in the stock shots of models gracing features and ad campaigns.
I model occasionally (and informally), despite my waist and hips being about two inches over the often expected norm. When I was first scouted I was a skinny thirteen year old, and my parents were still plying me with hot chocolate every morning to encourage weight gain. This was before growth spurts, before the twisting spine that re-moulded my torso, pretty much before the completion of puberty. It has only been my subsequent growth in the last year that has led to a realization of quite how narrow the body ideal of the industry actually is. My response used to be that: “I eat huge amounts of cake, sweets and full-fat food and am still slender, so people should stop suggesting that all models are unhealthy.” Although I still stand by the fact that some individuals are just naturally very slim, I’m much more suspicious of the extremes expected on the catwalk and in editorials. I fitted the high-end clothes at fourteen – I was a rapidly growing girl with a fast metabolism – but some of those pieces would now be too small to wriggle into at seventeen. Once I stopped growing upwards, then I began to fill out into my rightfully adult shape. If you’re tall like me, then it’s unusual for this shape to include a natural twenty-three or twenty-four inch waist (or even smaller). I’m confused as to why models my age and older are expected to be quite so slender. What is the purpose? I know that the counter-argument revolves around the reliance on fantasy and escapism, but surely it detracts from the clothes if one is distracted by the sight of a waist or thigh that looks dangerously breakable? This body shape, beyond reach of the majority of women, is almost fetishized – desirable in its unattainability. Even I occasionally feel the insidious whisper: the one suggesting that if I lost an inch here or there then I would somehow be better. It’s a false voice, but a persuasive one.
However, what alternatives currently exist within the industry? There are purportedly ‘plus sized’ models, but their use is always highly signposted; the model often clad in underwear, or nude. Editors claim that this is due to the refusal of some designers to provide anything other than a slip of a sample size. It’s dull and circular – some magazines blame the designers, who blame the model agencies, who blame those very magazines. The torch of responsibility is passed on quickly – hold it too long and it will burn.
Izzy of Misadventures of Me wrote a particularly insightful take on these matters.
Izzy of Misadventures of Me wrote a particularly insightful take on these matters.
A very singular ideal of beauty is subsequently promoted. It is young, slender, and – very sadly - often white. Beauty completely deserves to be celebrated, but in its wealth and diversity, rather than in banal similarity. Beauty can exist just as much in the grace (or disgrace!) of a seventy year old, as in a leggy, fresh-faced teenager. However, the current message is that only one type of beauty ensures approval – and that, as perfection does not exist, we all fall short. Germaine Greer in 'The Whole Woman' characterised it thus: “Every woman knows that, regardless of her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful... There must be bits of her that will not do, her knees, her buttocks, her breasts.”
We are encouraged to make up for these defects by the ‘beauty’ industry – an ironic name considering that it’s impossible to drastically alter your looks without recourse to plastic surgery. Instead it’s a business of ‘enhancement’. I’m writing this with my red lips pursed slightly, my kohl-lined eyes frowning at the screen. I have nothing against make-up – it’s part of the toolbox of dressing up, a paint-box, a further process of adornment. It can be fabulous. And yet, I also like the face that lies beneath those products. I don’t use make-up to hide my appearance, but to accentuate certain aspects. There’s nothing wrong with seeking to make yourself attractive to your peers or the opposite gender, as long as you do not define yourself solely by their responses. If the ‘real’ you must be concealed, moisturized and obscured then that’s not right. And yet the boundary line between something done for personal gratification, and something done due to certain expectations, is often hard to define.
Hair removal is just one example of this hard-to-define line. I only realised recently that my dislike of vests and sleeveless dresses stems from having armpits that resolutely refuse to be shaved properly – always retaining the faintest pin-pricks of stubble. It has taken several years to get the point where I don’t mind or fear some kind of judgement. If I’m honest, shaving of any kind is a tedious, time-consuming process. And yet, I prefer the look of my legs when they are smooth. I just resent the effort devoted to getting them to look that way, even if it’s only sporadic as they’re usually hidden away under tights. Removal of hair should be a personal choice, rather than a societal or peer-pressured expectation.
Perhaps this needs to be the defining question in any area relating to appearance – am I doing this for myself, or because I feel duty-bound? Will it improve my confidence, or do I feel confined? Is it an expectation, or something I enjoy? Of course such questions are much easier asked than answered, but maybe thinking about them is a move in the right direction.
This is the third in my planned series of posts on feminism - but there will be a little hiatus before the fourth is ready to put up. Thank you so much to all those who have taken the time and energy to comment on these pieces. I'm grateful for the insight and depth of the observations and opinions that people have offered up.
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