Alex Box in today's Sunday Times Style alert! How I love la Box, let me count the ways. Better still, the news that Joe Corre (Son of Vivienne Westwood/one former half of Agent Provocateur/general all-round dude) is now working with Illamasqua. To what degree his involvement is, I'm not sure, but his presence at Illamasqua HQ can only be a good thing.
Anyway, the article itself is neither here nor there (sorry Kate Spicer, you're kinda my idol but...) the argument is blah. C’mon give me something to get angry about! It's the whole real models versus using actual fashion models. I’m torn on the issue personally. The Dove women are forgettable and plain, there is no aspiration factor and it’s something I buy into. I’m not saying that all models have to be thin, Crystal Renn is beautiful, but she’s got an incredible face as well as being a plus-size model. She’s really versatile and could do fashion or beauty, which many fashion models would struggle with (although I’m sort of bored of her and ready for the new Crystal Renn.) Real fashion and beauty models have all of the aspiration value, but ultimately it leaves you feeling like you'll never quite be part of that club.
Reading a magazine recently I was really struck by Freida Pinto modeling for L’Oreal. It’s so unusual it is to see a non Caucasian woman in a UK advert (its de riguer in the US.) Maybe I'm more sensitive to it being Indian, but race in fashion and beauty advertising is bigger issue to me.
With the model vs real women debate, we grow up thinking that thin = better/best/beautiful. If you're non- Caucasian add to this equation thin + white = BEST because you have nothing else to compare yourself to. That's all you see on TV and magazines. Heap on top of this the internal skin colour debate (darker skinned girls are less attractive than fair skinned) and its multi-layered identity mess. I'm dark skinned myself, and love my skin-tone, but it's taken me years to realise that my initial discomfort growing up was because I never really saw anyone brown in the media, so I believed it wasn't as beautiful. I’m not saying this is the case for everyone, but it definitely affected me.
The model debate will rages on, it’s a gimmick after all, even if its intentions are to liberate womankind worldwide, I just think there are bigger fish to fry.
Crap, talk about off on a tangent!
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