Sunday, March 01, 2009

I Love Myself Today. Not Like Yesterday

It’s what’s on the inside that matters. That’s what we are told by everyone whenever we are feeling bad about our appearance; whether it’s the continuous wearing of winter hats that causes us to have a bad hair day, the late nights of partying that left us with dark puffy eyes the morning after or the one too many servings of turkey and stuffing over the holidays that caused us to gain a few extra pounds making our clothes just a little bit too snug in all the wrong places. When all of these things happen, we don’t care what’s on the inside because its what’s on the outside that everyone sees. But in the fashion industry, the opposite is more important. It’s what‘s on the outside that matters. From being too skinny to being too overweight, they are at a constant battle with the industry just to be accepted that it’s hard to tell what “counts” anymore.
Celebrity Skin
When we are flipping through magazines it is not the ads of plus size models in lingerie that makes us take a second look but the ads of the supermodels in string bikinis that make us stop the page turning for a second and wonder where to shop for such items, even if we won’t look the same wearing it. In a study done at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, it was shown that women would rather see a skinny woman in an ad, even if it makes her feel bad about herself. When shown ads with plus sized models in them, the women still liked the products but not as much as the ones being advertised by the skinnier ones. Women have been brainwashed into thinking that only skinny is beautiful and if your above a certain weight then your less attractive and lower class.
Skinny Minnie
When a model or celebrity is “too skinny”, people tend to label them as “drug users” or think they must have an eating disorder to obtain such rail like features. There are the exceptions of a few that sometimes this is true but a lot of these models work hard to get the figures they have through exercise and diet. But because of all the models and celebrities that are going about it the wrong way we judge them all as we skim through magazines and browse fashion ads and we think their all anorexic or have done one two many rails in their days on the party train.
Suck It In Princess
And then there is the whole other side to it. When models and celebrities start to gain a little weight it is never overlooked. Everyone is allowed a little weight gain once in a while but if a model or celebrity does, they are picked apart and criticized for it until they become so ashamed of themselves that they go into exercise overload to get their body back to the acceptable weight of the publics eye. Recently Jessica Simpson has been at centre stage on the bloggers list due to that fact that she has become, once again, a little too curvy for their liking. She is still a beautiful woman and has fans around the world still buying her music and attending her concerts but because she gained some weight she is now on the don’t list of every fashion magazine out there.
I Wanna Be Like Me
Either way you look at it we are judging them on their appearance and what size their body is. We criticize them when they are skinny and we criticize them when they are a little overweight. And then we subconsciously decide the quality of a product depending on the size of the model selling it. We look to models and celebrities for inspiration, style and keen fashion sense and then put them down when their appearance and weight isn’t perfect. When we have a bad day and don’t look our best we are told not to worry and that nobody cares. When will be the day that it’s ok for everyone to not worry if their not perfect? When will be that day that the rule goes for everyone, “it’s what’s on the inside that counts?”

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