Glamour’s Body Image Revolution

 

Some of the top plus size models working today in Glamour Magazine November 2009

The November issue of Glamour Magazine featured an article declaring that the magazine would feature age, size, and cultural diversity in their fashion and beauty images. Not only did the article include a nude image of the top plus size models working today, but it also included a lengthly quote on my current research about the impact of fashion models on purchase intentions. I was honoured to be part of this revolutionary step forward in changing who is in the pictures that wallpaper our visual world.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

“We are undergoing a shift in the mind-set of the modern female consumer,” explains Ben Barry, who coauthored a study on how women in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom respond to advertising images. Conducted in collaboration with the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School, the study of more than 3,000 subjects showed that women were most likely to want to purchase a fashion product if it was associated with a model that directly resembled them. “This does not mean that women want to do away with aspirational images,” cautions Barry. “It is the very opposite. The worst thing a magazine could do is to showcase an image of a ‘normally sized’ model that looks like most driver’s license pictures, with poor styling, clothing and photography. Instead, women want these models to have the same glamour and artistry as other fashion models.” We at Glamour couldn’t agree more, and we’re listening hard to our readers’ call to action. Here’s what you can expect to see in our pages going forward:

• A continued commitment to showing a wide range of body types—and, of course, racial diversity—in our pages, including fashion and beauty stories.
• A promise to give the best plus models not just work, but the same great work straight-size models get, partnering with top photographers, stylists and makeup artists. Because a generous helping of fantasy, in our view, is fabulous—as long as it’s extended to women of all sizes.
• An ongoing celebration of the so-called imperfections, from nose bumps to gap teeth smiles, that make us all unique.
• Enthusiastic support for any designer who manufactures chic clothes we can photograph on full-bodied models.

Quebec Launches Charter for Body Diversity

The seven models who participated in the fashion show to launch the Charter

On October 16th, 2009, I was delighted to join the Quebec Government and members of the fashion industry to launch The Quebec Charter for a Healthy and Diverse Body Image. Eight months before, I was hired by the Government as a special advisor to help develop and draft the document. We developed the Charter through consultations with professionals from fashion, health, education, Government as well as those with eating disorders. We also debated and discussed various drafts of Charter with a committee composed of members from these various sectors until we achieved consensus.

The Charter proposes a vision for a society that values body diversity and identifies seven principles for industry, media and regulators to follow in order to help make it reality. Through the seven principles, we are all challenged to act as agents of change to help free ourselves and each other from self-limiting beauty stereotypes. Aside from helping develop the Charter itself, my particular touch was launching the Charter with a fashion show featuring seven models of different sizes, ages, and cultural backgrounds to show the vision in practice. Over the next year, I will join the Government and other professions on a committee to help the spirit of the Charter take hold through the industry and other sectors.

Here is a copy of the Charter:

Québec Charter for a Healthy and Diverse Body Image

The body image presented in the public sphere and the media influences self-image, self-esteem, and, indirectly, public health. We recognize that beauty ideals based on extreme slimness can harm self-esteem, particularly in girls and women. We believe that eating habits and weight loss practices are influenced by biology, psychology, family, society, and culture. We encourage partners from all fields—governments, community organizations, and corporations—to work together to help diminish social pressure in the interest of a healthy and egalitarian society. We believe that with their vitality and creativity, the fashion, advertising, and media sectors can provide leadership and exert a positive influence over the public. We want to follow the international trend in the fashion industry towards awareness campaigns on problems related to excessive preoccupation with weight, anorexia, and bulimia. We are determined, at the instigation of the Minister of Culture, Communications and the Status of Women, to collectively contribute to drafting this charter and launching a common call to action to promote a healthy diversity of body images.

We, the undersigned, therefore pledge our support for a vision of a society in which body diversity is valued and, in consequence, undertake, as part of our respective missions, to

1. Promote a diversity of body images, including different heights, proportions, and ages

2. Encourage healthy eating and weight control habits

3. Discourage excessive behavior with respect to weight loss or appearance modification.

4. Refuse to subscribe to esthetic ideals based on extreme slimness

5. Remain vigilant and diligent in order to minimize the risks of anorexia, bulimia, and unhealthy concerns about weight

6. Act as agents of change in order to promote healthy and realistic practices and images regarding the body

7. Promote the Québec Charter for a Healthy and Diverse Body Image to our partners, clientele, and colleagues while actively adhering to and respecting these principles

A Designer Who Gets Diversity

Alison in VAWK Spring/Summer 2010

Peggi in VAWK Spring/Summer 2010

On October 19, Project Runway Canada (PRC) winner Sunny Fong opened LG Toronto Fashion Week with his spring/summer 2010 collection under his label VAWK. We were delighted to help him cast both traditional and non-tradition models to showcase his high fashion collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Fong explained: “I am all about diversity and choosing different looks, as opposed to clones – that’s not interesting. I chose models of all ages and sizes because I want to prove that my clothes are meant to be worn; they aren’t only for show. I wanted to let people imagine what my clothes would like if you were to see them walking down the street.” Media gave Fong rave reviews not only for his masterful artistry and feminine silhouettes, but for his choice of diverse models. Designers like Fong understand the business case for showing your consumer on the catwalk.

All Ages at London Fashion Week

A model for Joanna Sykes's Spring/Summer 2010 at London Fashion Week

A model for Joanna Sykes's Spring/Summer 2010 at London Fashion Week

A model for Joanna Sykes's Spring/Summer 2010 at London Fashion Week

Joanna Sykes followed on the heels of Mark Fast by courageously expanding beauty boundaries at London Fashion Week by presenting her collection on models of diverse ages. London Fashion Fashion has demonstrated that it is not only mass brands (i.e. Dove) that can successfully incorporate age and body diversity into their promotion; high fashion brands can also present their collections on diverse models while keeping with their aspirational image.

Body Diversity at London Fashion Week

 

 

Size 14 model for Mark Fast at London Fashion Week

Size 2 model for Mark Fast at London Fashion Week

Size 12 model for Mark Fast at London Fashion Week

Size 14 model for Mark Fast at London Fashion Week

London-based Canadian knitwear designer Mark Fast has broken with fashion tradition by incorporating three size 12 and 14 models (alongside his size 2 models) into his Spring/Summer 2010 show at London Fashion Week. What is particularly revolutionary about his effort – aside from the fact that he put body diversity on the catwalk – was that he did not make the focus of his show or media release on his incorporation of larger sizes (he did it as if it was expected) nor did he simply include a token full figured model for attention. His authentic and genuine celebration of body diversity – size 2, 12, and 14 – on the catwalk is inspiration for all fashion designers to dream beyond their exclusive use of one size. Change is coming.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

 

Beautiful Women

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? We often look at the image staring back and point out flaws that need to be changed. A flatter tummy, smaller nose, smoother skin is what we note. But what if we celebrate and honour what we have already. Love our stomachs, laugh lines, and radiant eyes because they make us beautiful.

Taking pride is who we see in their mirror every morning hit home a few days ago when I had the privilege to view the Beautiful Women Project. Artist Cheryl-Ann Webster conceived the project after discovering her daughter’s 13-year-old friend was saving money for breast implants. She realized that very few people love their reflection; in fact 93% of Canadian women want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance. This fact should come as no surprise when we see that our locus of comparison is the same uninspired beauty ideal staring at us back from almost every magazine.

Determined to challenge this beauty ideal, Cheryl-Ann worked with 120 real women between the ages of 19 to 91 to create visual role models who reflect us. She made a clay mould of each of the 120 women’s front torsos from their necks to their hiplines. She then decorated the surface of each mould to reflect each woman’s inner beauty. As she worked with the women, she asked, “Why did you volunteer for my Project?”  Some offered their body in honour of a loved one battling cancer or who had passed away; others chose to partake as another step in their personal discovery or healing; many wanted to face their own body image issues. 

Her first exhibition of the Beautiful Women Project opened to the public in Kingston, Ontario in January 2006. Since then, the exhibition has toured communities and showed people the true panorama of our human splendor. My recent viewing of the exhibit left me with a beauty challenge for all of us: Look in mirror and, aloud, tell yourself three parts of your body that you find beautiful. Each day, add a new body part to your list and rediscover why you are beautiful just the way you are.

Democratizing Beauty

 

What does beauty mean? The answer depends on who you ask. To the advertising agent, fashion editor, or plastic surgeon, beauty is a one-size-fits-all formula of smooth, thin and young. But to women around the world, beauty does not have a static and narrow definition; it is fluid and complex, based on character and spirit.

Girls and women around the world are making their beauty claims known. Through blogs, Facebook groups, and other forms of social media, they demonstrate that the once omnipresent grip of beauty-makers over women no longer exists; women are now their own agents of beauty. One such FaceBook group, Beauty Vs. Industry, asks girls and women to upload photos of themselves and write what makes them beautiful onto them.

Inspired by this initiative, we now ask everyone who visits us to bring a photo of themselves, write what makes them beautiful onto it, and place it on our wall of real beauty. Our goal: To bring beauty and industry together. Photo by photo, person by person, we are changing how society perceives beauty – and so can you by engaging in these projects. Our request: Send us your photo, write what makes you beautiful onto it, and we will place it on our wall.

How Do You Read Magazines?

Acclaimed author Rebecca Walker (Black White Jewish, One Big Happy Family, Baby Love) shares her thoughts on women’s magazines and feminism:

How do you think mainstream girls/women’s magazines have impacted “modern” feminism?

Girl’s/Women’s magazines impact women positively and negatively. They provide a sense of community, a location for fantasies of glamour, a shared generational visual language, a heightened appreciation for fashion, and content that is relevant and helpful for girls and women, i.e. articles on breast cancer prevention, body-image issues, and the plight of women in other countries.

However, the magazines are often at odds with their own goals of befriending the reader. If they define beauty in a limited way-white, thin, rich, overly-sexualized, and objectified-sometime magazines manufacture in girls and women a desire to alter ourselves, or, even worse, to question the worth and fabulousness of our own (i.e. not white, not thin, not rich) lives in comparison to those portrayed in the magazine.

And because models don’t speak, their fabulousness is all about how they look, not how they feel. The reader begins to see herself that way, to focus more on the external, “Do I look okay?’ than on the internal, “Am I okay?”

That said, as a reader of women’s magazines, I believe women can have an interactive relationship with a fashion glossy. The reader does not have to be a passive absorber of the messages of the magazine, but can pick and choose, based on their level of insight, which ideas and images to integrate into their consciousness.

Readers can also read/look with a sense of irony and critique, changing the material into a piece of cultural matter to be engaged and partially rejected, and not mindlessly shaped by. This line of thought is consistent with the Third Wave idea that women are not only victims, but agents in our own lives; our work as Third Wavers is not just to diminish victimization but to amplify agency.

What do you think of the direction that these mainstream magazines are headed in? Negative or positive and why?

Mainstream magazines depend on advertising dollars to survive, which is why the magazines reflect so directly the interests of those advertisers. Make-up, pharmaceutical cosmetics, fashion, etc., will continue to claim more pages, and meaningful, unsubsidized content will continue to fall away unless there is significant intervention.

As media empires are driven toward healthier trends by consumers-like green products and conflict-free diamonds-I believe we will see some positive change. Supporting the Dove campaigns for Real Beauty is one way to apply the needed pressure for change. Dove is having an incredible impact on women, girls and the industry at large by expanding the standard of beauty in their models, and initiating dynamic public discussion about the right for women to feel good about themselves as they are.

Is there a counter balance to whatever effects these particular mainstream magazines have? Any examples?

Women have to take responsibility for loving and accepting ourselves, period. There is an old Langston Hughes poem about a woman looking for her reflection in a sink full of dirty dishwater. We will never see ourselves if we keep looking to the wrong places for glimpses of our beauty.

We live in an amazing moment. Never before have there been so many incredible women at our fingertips. From Frida Kahlo to Anais Nin, Yoko Ono to Angela Davis. With a simple Google search we can see some of the most brilliant and fashionable women in the world. These women of history should become our magazines, our friends, our mentors across time.

Other measures for counterbalance include education: readers should know who profits from the magazines and how the mags function as pieces of pop culture. Feedback about beauty and everything else should come from reliable sources that know and love us. Women and girls need to be involved in cultivating dynamic lives.

I am learning French, swim as much as I can, study Tibetan Buddhism, travel as much as possible, read, cuddle with my partner and son. There is so much with which to build a life filled with happiness. The magazines can be an alternate world, almost like a drug, that delude you into thinking that happiness is in there, in that make believe world, rather than out here, in the life you have. Not true!

Exposure to international standards of beauty is also helpful. In Mali a woman is not considered beautiful unless she has a large forehead. To realize that different cultures have different ways of defining beauty helps to understand that ours is also just cultural, just local, and not universal. This can be liberating.

Hijabistas

 

Expanding our perceptions of beauty goes beyond size and age to religion and culture.  I was delighted to discover a group of street photographers who scout, photograph and post images of Muslim women to challenge our stereotypes around the Hijab. Calling their subjects “Hijabistas,” they show real women in their authentic beauty who help proclaim their identities through creativity and belief. I look forward to welcoming these women to our team at the Ben Barry Agency Inc. We will eradicate ridged ideals together by daring to be ourselves. Please visit their blog at: http://hijabshigh.blogspot.com/

Entrepreneurship in North Bay

 

Ben speaking at The Capital Centre

Ben speaking at Almaguin Secondary School

This past week, I was invited to share my entrepreneurial journey and tips with 1000 high school student in North Bay and the surrounding regions. I spoke about  how young people do not need to wait until later in their lives to begin their own businesses, but have all of the skills and ideas right now. I touched on themes such as how to start a firm with limited capital, how to develop mentors, and ultimately, how questioning your mentors means that you have developed a unique business idea. The Business Centre Nipissing Parry Sound hosted the two events to promote their programs that foster youth entrepreneurship, such as Summer Company (co-presented with The Ministry of Small Business and Consumer Services) that provide business training and grants to students who want to begin summer businesses. A big thank you to Anna Iati and Neal Kelly for their hospitality.