British Style Bloggers is a blog cataloguing site which aims not only to put your blog on a lovely long list, but also to show you the very best of the fashion industry. Because, let's face it, fashion is mostly lethal. But we're nice. We're very, very nice. Stick around, and get to know us. We'd love to get to know you!
Hello, hello! Well, today, we have a very special post. We're introducing a new member of our team. His name is Josh, he's a model, actor, and just about everything else, and, yes; he's American. We know we're British Style Bloggers, but we want international opinion to make this campaign work, and Josh had so much to say that we couldn't resist!
Where do I start? I'm extremely busy seems like at ALL times. I'm a Model. Writer. Actor. & Singer-- In that order. I'm signed openly with 4 agencies around the country (& looking for more outside the U.S.) and I travel around frequently for live shows, photoshoots, etc. I've been published many times as well, even in foreign countries. As a writer, I have many projects going on. I work fulltime publishing articles for a Medical Tourism company. I'm also working on getting a TV sitcom off the ground as well as a full-length movie. Sadly, both projects are in a stage where they can't openly be talked about. Recently, I've done work on a couple "Indie films" but I've been in talks working on making it into Hollywood. I plan to produce an album as well, eventually. Vocally, I sound a bit like Adam Lambert with a little Darren Hayes or Daniel Bedingfield thrown in-- but my style is a mix of Lady Sovereign & Lily Allen. Unfortunately for me, however, I've been way too busy to put more focus into my last two endeavors but I like to conquer one thing at a time. 2 down, 2 to go.
We asked you to join our team because of your enthusiasm for the Body Image cause. Can you tell us why it means so much to you?
Body image is something I've secretly battled most of my life. However, I've never dealt with eating disorders or anything like that. I love food. In fact, if i had an eating disorder it would be that i eat TOO MUCH! My answer to body image is basically something we all must just get over. I feel as though nobody seems to be happy with the way they look-- by getting plastic surgeries, or even mildly complaining about it off & on-- nobody's happy! I was no different. I'd never thought I was all that gorgeous to look at but I'm comfortable with myself and the way I look and I think I happen to take great pictures. I've never been completely HAPPY with the way I look, but I'm comfortable.
How did you first get up the guts to be as unique and original as you are?
I have tons of drive. A lot of self inspiration. And basically I'm out to prove I can do anything. And in order to do anything one must do.everything. Plain and simple. :)
You've obviously got tonnes of confidence! Have you got any advice for others who may be struggling with that?
Like I mentioned before, it all comes from within. You have to be happy with who you are inside & what you're doing with your life. Once you're happy, it will show. People will sense that something about you as well-- you'll have that mysterious edge. Self confidence is a very powerful thing.
Can you tell us a little sneaky tiny bit about what your column's going to be about? We're really excited!
I'll tell you a little. I don't want to give it ALL away, right?! :) Fashion and self-awareness. I'll start my path with a little how-to find your own individual style, then teeter-totter back and forth with Fashion and Self-Awareness. Obviously what I have to say is all very positive so I'm sure it'll all be very uplifting.
Don't forget to check back on Thursday for Josh's first column!
Each decade had that one iconic woman that defined that era, defined the way woman wanted to look and dress like. But what about their shape? People of an older generation are forever saying that girls in this day are smaller in size than ever, but was this the case, really? Everyone prepare for a timeline
It's undeniable that Marilyn was the ultimate icon of her time, with her shock of blonde hair, her small stature and womanly curves. It's widely believed that Marilyn fitted a UK size 14-16, but it has in fact recently be proven that she would now translate to a 10-12. She's still obviously gorgeous though.
In years when the Hollywood starlet was in short supply it was a 16 year old British girl who shot to stardom. With her gangly limbs and cropped haircut she seem's like the 60's equivalent of a pro- size zero model. But my Nana told me, and she may kill me for this, that she weighed a mere 7 stone and 6 pounds back in 1977- when she was 3 months pregnant.
This girl is possibly the most iconic Charlie's Angel there ever was. Again though she isn't exactly stick thin and her hair is far from poker straight, but I can't imagine her being so well known if this were the case. The "Farrah Fawcett" hairstyle was only outdone by the "Rachel" almost 20 years later.
Ok so technically she isn't a real person, but that didn't stop girls wanting to look like her and boys salivating over a cartoon character. While she has got the perfect proportions, they're also massively flawed and if she were real poor Jess wouldn't even be able to stand up properly. But on a positive note- She's flame haired!
She isn't known as "The Body" for nothing. with legs that seemed to go on forever and those blonde sun-kissed locks, the Aussie lady firmly secured her place as an icon. A very exciting little fact for me is that Elle is set to be the new presenter of Britain's Next Top Model.
Oh Angelina, lets set aside the whole brad pitt affair (I was totally team Jen by the way), the lady is clearly an icon. She's classy but also more than a little sexy, the lips and hips all add to her sultry look. I wish she would return to this image.
So who will be the Iconic woman of the 10's? Well who knows but hopefully it's going to be a fabulous role model who can help girls feel better about their appearance.
I'm heading up the activism & existing campaigns section of Positive Body Image Season here at BISB. I'm putting together a great long list of links to other people's established positivity campaigns, but in the meanwhile I'd like to head a course to positive old media (as in: TV and film) representations of complex body image issues.
Of course, that's pretty hard, because if mainstream media promoted that sort of thing the world wouldn't be in quite the state that it is. I swear, I'm an optimist! But I'm a future-orientated optimist; I'm not going to pretend that 'our' track record is "not as bad as all that".
So what I'm ACTUALLY going to do right here right now is highlight some existing media that doesn't necessarily come out swinging and singing the praises of normal, beautiful people but which points uncompromisingly at the problems caused by stringent beauty ideals and the enormous value put on the shallowest of judgments. Watch them, show them to people, and maybe, maybe, these hang-ups will start to dissolve.
What am I saying? Of course they will! Most of my dragons have been slain by thoughtful fiction. Trufax.
Pick one:
Since watching Oldboy (trailer), Save the Green Planet (trailer) and The Host (trailer) It's become a habit of mine to periodically search "korean movie trailer" on youtube and see which gems turn up. Last go, I stumbled across Beautiful.. whose trailer took my heart and squeezed it. Take a look.
In summary, the film is about a woman who is near-empirically (guess what) "Beautiful". And whilst that's nice in a vacuum, in the context of her life it causes her to be seen as extreme competition and fair game for uncouth comments and behaviour such as stalking. Eventually, one of them rapes her, and blames her and 'her beauty' for his actions. She decides that she needs to become "un-beautiful", and from there.. her life unravels further and further. With a little help from her 'friends'.
This doesn't sound like a happy film. It does look like a good one, though - it's an angle on beauty standards, misogyny (which, oh yes, is all tied up with mainstream body image issues), and the enormous control they can wield over people's real lives. Not a straight-up everywoman story, but not fantasy; touching enough nerves that I certainly can't ignore the truth of its message: in life, you have to be stronger than the expected average because there is too much at stake to allow these prejudices and assumptions and value judgements - that we apply to people every day - to remain unexamined. Don't be the lowest common denominator. Unchallenged beauty standards ruin lives (to greater or lesser degrees).
Body image is about identity, after all. There's no reason to attack someone for being who they are.
Incidentally, the Beautiful (or 아름답다, or Areumdapta) trailer reminded me of this: reading Jezebel last month, I came across this article, which talks about Mauritanian girl-children being force-fed, partly through torture, to make them fat enough to be desirable to prospective husbands. By their mothers. Oh, the many joys of patriarchy and human fallibility! Let us count them. And then destroy them.
Pick two:
Confession: I've never seen the movie Taxi Driver. But something within it is one of my favourite film happenings. I've never seen the film I'm talking about, but I have seen Heat Guy J. Heat Guy is an animated series of the type that looks basic and archetypal on the cover, seems weird and maybe a little bad in the first episode or two, and by the end is an enormous, glowing ball of visible inspirations re-mixed and originally worked into a brilliant, moving whole. The 'happening' I am talking about, the one from Taxi Driver, is shown on-screen in Heat Guy and seems to be effectively lifted from the film to the series. When I first saw it I had no idea about this and I loved it; it was a perfect moment for the show and the character. Now I know it's pinched, I may like it even more.
The happening is: a character shaves his hair into a mohawk to ready himself for a task looming ahead. Wikipedia suggests that the act of shaving isn't shown in the film (if this is wrong, let me know!), so here's the trailer. The difference is far towards the end.
Unfortunately I can't find Heat Guy's the shaving scene on youtube.. these stills will have to suffice.
[..hahaha I just realised i havent added these yet. Give me til tomorrow evening!]
I like this scene so much because it speaks to me and is straightforwardly plain: sometimes, a body needs to be a certain way to express the emotions that are boiling your soul. It doesn't matter if you're a big tuff gruff man, it doesn't matter if you're anything. If a person looks a certain way it may be necessary for them at that time - who are we to judge? The world requires an awful lot of conformity and compliancy sometimes and it should chill out.
I must point out here that having shaved head-sides does not mean that a person is going to shoot somebody, though. That is the metaphorical part - "doing a murder" = "slaying one's own demons" - in this analogue. For a real life example, when I moved back home after uni and started spending my days doing only housework and cooking, I did this to my hair:
I needed something jagged to balance the sudden domesticity. Taxi Driver and Heat Guy J remind us in a roundabout way that if you think someone looks weird, what you're actually noticing is that they just aren't you, but a real person all of their own.
Pick three:
Dawn French on Big Women. Degrees of fatness are the first, most obvious point when it comes to "Positive Body Image" themes. All that negativity that results from "obesity" being mistaken for and becoming interchangable with "ill health". We all know that prejudice against "fat people" is a hot topic, and I'm sure there's not much I could reasonably say on this subject that hasn't been said far better. The first part is here, but the whole thing is up on youtube. I found it really interesting, food for a lot of thought, and I think you might too.
This one, actually, is directly about beauty requirements (specifically in the UK). "Why should we have to starve to be seen as beautiful?" It's really interesting to see the fashion industry professionals talking about the "problems" with using bigger ladies in shoots. Because their words are so weedy. One guy thinks that "women today" don't have cellulite. HAHAHAHAA
This documentary was made in the 90s, as far as I can tell, but it hasn't stopped being relevant. I don't know that I need to say much here, because Ms French is directly addressing the facts rather than telling a story that includes them, but I will warn you that a couple of times she disses thin ladies and I don't want to be hearing any discussion of how that is "just as bad". It's not nice, but it isn't just as bad as going booooo fatties.
Also, watch right to the end of part five. It's worth it!
Here are a couple of links to read ahead of the Big Activism List, if you find yourself inclined towards a dislike of people with a larger bodily circumference that yourself: two
Pick four:
Chris Rock's Good hair. I had no idea what a weave was until the end of last year, when this documentary and Tyra Banks' weave-less TV appearances were dissected on Jezebel (I go there a lot). I had a vague idea of some of the base issues surrounding hair and race from 4thletter's David Brothers' posts on the matter (read those they are so good), but being white in a white-majority village in a white-majority country (never having had a black classmate, even) I had no push to realise that there is apparently a WORLD of intricacy and psychology involved in hairstyling. Again, I'm not sure I need/get to comment here. This is a documentary so it'll SAY what it wants to tell you, and really, what can I add? Even if you know the ins and outs of all this already, watching this might be cathartic. If you have no idea about various standards of hair, why keep yourself ignorant? Do you want to treasure the possibility of saying something crashingly insensitive some day?
Even if none of the body image angles in this post apply to you - say, you identify as an averagely attractive size ten east-asian who likes mainstream trends - I dare you to watch all of these and experience no new thoughts! Or any new empathy.
And aren't consideration and empathy requirements preceeding change of standards?
Expect your regularly-scheduled Florrie-post on the 13th! Get well soon, Florrie!
This is just a super-quick post to tell you all a tiny bit about the massive finalé we have planned for Body Image Season (which isn't for a while, don't worry!).
We're currently in the process of creating a great big something-or-other, and for this something-or-other we're looking for contributors - writers, artists, photographers, models, bloggers... anyone and everyone, whether you're British, a style blogger, or none of the above...
If you think you have something to share, and you'd like to be involved in a massive, super-exciting Top Secret project, please, please, please get in touch!
Alex roots is a singer/ songwriter from London, though she is only 17 she has achieved a lot, a record deal and an almost complete first album as well as supporting McFly, Calvin Harris and the Sugababes. So how does she feel about her body and body image in such a body-conscious industry? I interviewed her to find out.
Image from Alex's Myspace
At such a young age how do you feel about your body?
I feel like any other teenager, I have my insecurities but I look after myself- I go to the gym three times a week and eat well- I know it’s important to look well, but never fake.
Would you say you were a positive role model?
Yeah I guess so, I like to stay real and not get too obsessive about my body. I actually have a song called “Calorie Junkie” about the media and body image. I’ve found a lot of girls have been able to relate to it.
How do you dress for your shape and image?
I go with what I know suits me and flatters my shape. I wear a lot of dresses with blazers and waist belts. I also love heels and a lot of accessories so accentuate the positives and keep my style individual.
What do you think of the issue of body image in the industry?
I understand that it is important to look good but to have the right balance- I’m not to big or too small- So I hope that girls can look up to me.
Who are your body role models?
I love real girls with curves like Scarlett Johannson, J-lo of course, Katy Perry and Kimberly Walsh from Girls Aloud. But my absolute favourite is Penelope Cruz, she’s got a fabulous shape!
What do you love about your body?
Without sounding raunchy I’m going to have to say my boobs… they’re just the right size and look good in a dress. I also like my waist and stomach, as they’re trim and toned.
What do you not like so much?
My legs, because when I was younger my Mum and Dad used to call me tree trunk legs - they were chunky all the way down! But I’m ok with them now.
How do you overcome self-consciousness on stage?
To be honest when I’m onstage I just get this feeling inside of me, I get into the persona - as do others, and when I’m having the time of my life I don’t have time to worry about how I look!
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