'You might be standing in the queue to pay at the supermarket when you suddenly notice that someone is staring intently at your child and nudging their companion. You might be walking down the street when someone just comes right up and asks about your child’s appearance. Young children are incredibly curious, they look intently at things and ask very straightforward questions. Some people are genuinely concerned. Others may be familiar with your child’s condition and may want to offer a friendly word.    This sort of casual encounter is often difficult for parents because it is unexpected and it can often feel very intrusive. Many parents we speak with tell us that they often feel completely unprepared to deal with this sort of curiosity and it can leave them feeling angry, upset and powerless'

These are the sad but true words from the Changing Faces website offered to the parents of children with facial disfigurments. Looking different from everyone else brings with it a body image battle. On the whole we all want to be different but ironically also wish to conform and be part of a group, and I can only guess at the struggle people with facial disfigurments have. Naive children are always prone to stating what they see and don't understand which must make the early life of these children difficult but what is terrible is when adults cause problems.

Changing Faces is a wonderul charity that challenges our attitudes and educate from an early age, their Face Equality campaign 'is about being treated fairly and equally irrespective of facial appearance. It is about creating a society in which everyone is valued for the unique contribution that they can make to society.

The campaign aims to:

• Raise awareness of our unconscious beliefs about disfigurement that can result in prejudice and discrimination
• Encourage people, organisations and the government to tackle such beliefs and attitudes and make a commitment to face equality
• Help everyone learn new ways of thinking and behaving towards people with disfigurements'

They have recently chosen four children to front their campaign in which they are presented as just normal people. For a wide variety of reasons people may look different from you or I but they did not ask for it and should not be made to feel ashamed.

This morning 'This Life', a programme on the BBC featured the inspirational children, Harry, Max, Lucas and Lauren, and the episode can be found on iplayer. I wish I could tell them 'Good for you.'

Links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rfmyc/My_Life_Billboard_Kids/

http://www.changingfaces.org.uk/

http://intrinsicallyflorrie.blogspot.com/

Guest post by Claire Nelson

Image: HERE

You know the deal. Your friends upload their photos from your latest get-together, and you eagerly start looking through them. But admit it - you are also scanning them to check how good (or bad) you look. We all do it. It’s part of our fascination with our appearance. Call it vanity, call in insecurity (and sometimes those two things are one and the same), we are fascinated with the way we look.

A familiar example: my absolutely gorgeous friend is a chronic Facebook-photo-untagger. Very few photos seem to get through her ruthless screening process. Not just those understandably unflattering photographs (there always seems to be one taken while you’re gurning mid-sentence), but perfectly nice, normal photos. I can see a great photo of my friend, and she will notice a squinty eye. (De-tag!)
Needless to say, my friend is one of a million women who do the same thing. Why do we do this to ourselves? And who exactly are we trying to hide our flaws from anyway?

Self-image is a complex thing. It’s less about how we actually look, and more about how we see ourselves; and this can be the whole problem. Our own worst critics, we will focus on aspects and areas of our appearance that nobody else even notices. Women can be almost blind to their best traits, such is the extreme focus on their so-called flaws. What we don’t often realise is that we see ourselves far less than anybody else, so our self-image is often obscured.

I have learned this lesson myself.  Last summer I was lucky enough to have my photo taken by the renowned photographer Rankin, for his exhibition of real people. Of course, I blindly overlooked the word “real” and decided that this was my opportunity to be captured looking gorgeous and glamorous, a la Kate Moss. I went in there with dreams of big hair and lots of make-up. 
However, the stylists went against the big hair –they left it as it was, and gave me minimal makeup. I was forced to go out there and be real.

I tried to compensate for my lack of makeover by trying to wrestle my best “look” into the lens of the camera. Yet the first set of shots didn’t look right... I was too stiff, too posed.  In the end Rankin chose one photo which really stood out. It was me laughing, and I had to agree it was the best photo of them all, even though my crooked overbite was prominent, and my large nose crinkled in glee. My two most sensitive hang-ups brought to life!
Getting my prints back, I felt a little pang of disappointment that I had not been transformed into an amazing version of myself, and that in fact, I just looked like.... me.  The real me. With my flaws right there for all to see.

Everybody else saw that it was a fabulous photo, and I realised that of course, this is how they see me all the time.  I may not be used to seeing myself from that angle, but everyone else was. They thought the photo was beautiful because I looked confident and happy.  This was a revelation to me.  My own view of myself was skewed, and not necessarily kind.

We all have our hang-ups. But what we ought to be doing, instead of focusing on them, is accepting them. They’re there. That’s us. That’s how we look. It can be such a liberating feeling to accept that, and realise that actually, we’re really attractive people. I’ve had my share of male admirers, and clearly they don’t see the nose and the teeth - they see me laughing, pulling faces, shaking that lovely hair of mine. In the same way friends and family liked my Rankin portrait because they’re used to the nose and the teeth, and when they see that photo they just see me.

I am hanging that photo on my wall so that I can learn to see me too, and so I can be reminded to see past my hang-ups. I will also keep tagging my gorgeous friend in our Facebook photos, in the hope that more of them stay that way. We all have a different image of ourselves in our heads to what everyone else sees, so we should try to see ourselves as others do. Let’s stop listening to the opinions of our own worst critic – after all, what do they know? They never see the whole picture.

Guest post by Caroline of Second Hand Shopper.

Hi, I’m Caroline, and I’m indescribable. I can’t be called fat (though it has been known to happen…) and I can’t be called slim, because, well, I’m not. I’m a size 16 in most clothes (though I tried on two size 16 pencil skirts at lunch time that would strongly deny it) making me square on average sized for this island we Brits call home. And clothes were not made to fit me.

I learned long ago that clothes sizing on the British high street is there to cause shoppers as much stress and frustration as possible. Alongside said too tight skirts this lunchtime I did actually make a purchase, a lovely grey work dress that fits like a glove. In a size 12.

When picking out clothes it’s the overall proportions that dictate whether something will fit me. What this means in practicality is that a lot of the time clothes cut for the high street are not cut for my form, that I’m too hippy for the average store’s size 16 but too narrow-waisted for the smallest plus size fitting. What this means emotionally is that shopping can reduce me to a state of complete self-loathing as I dissolve into tears on the fitting room floor.

The word “fat” has become something of an expletive in modern society. We describe women as curvy or voluptuous, men as heavy set or sturdy, children as chubby or as carrying puppy fat… We bring out “fat” only when being vindictive or vitriolic, to sting or berate. “Fat” is a word I pull out when I want to torture myself, a stick I use to beat myself into submission when my wavering hand is reaching for the cheese at 10pm. It’s a short, sharp, shock of a word that can bring down the most beautiful, successful and independent of women and stop my greed in its tracks.

And we need to undo this evolution of meaning, to give fat back over to its purpose as an adjective rather than an insult. The way to do this is often seen to be to embrace “fat” a la Beth Ditto, and learn to love bodies for all the amazing things they do for us – whatever their shape.

But what if fat doesn’t embrace you back?

That’s where the issue lies for indescribables. Because neither fatties nor skinnies will take us. We are the ultimate rejects, uncared for, uncatered for and unloved.

Poor body image, we are told, affects us all. A recent blog post [http://secondhandshopper.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/wide-load/] I wrote about being overweight and its effect on everyday activities like eating in public, travelling by train and sounding out of breath after a brisk walk, provoked comments, tweets, emails and conversations from dozens of women simply stating “that’s EXACTLY what goes through MY brain”. It also provoked comments from women at the other end of the spectrum, who happily confessed to being equally aware of what others might be thinking of them. Everyone, it seems, has their own personal vendetta against their body, their face, their hair...  

But what no-one ever tells you is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Almost a year ago now, a Times Online article lead me to write another body-image inspired blog post following their comments about the amazingly beautiful Christina Hendricks (see image). The article was the oft-churned-out “curves are coming back” fluff, and heralded Joan Holloway (Christina’s character in Mad Men) as the ideal example of the new shape, while deriding Christina Hendricks for being “big” (an opinion recently reiterated to many a blogger’s disgust by a commenter on the Daily Mail website):

Image: HERE

“Every time Christina Hendricks (Joan in Mad Men) is interviewed and photographed in contemporary clothes, you are reminded that casual, undone and edgy do no favours for the hourglass figure. In that early 1960s look, with asset-packing sheath and immaculate up-do, any woman would die to look like her. But in a thigh-skimming asymmetric number with a frill down the front or, God forbid, jeans and T-shirt, she looks like the big girl who doesn’t quite have what it takes.”

(Source: HERE)

I’m sorry, what was that now? “The big girl who doesn’t quite have what it takes”?? Have you seen this woman?

Thankfully, unlike other “curvy” celebrities, Christina seems to have a truly healthy relationship with her shape. In the feature the image is lifted from, she states unequivocally that she was, until the media started waxing lyrical, completely oblivious to the fact that her body looked any different to any other actress’s. In fact, she’s fed up with her body being centre stage and would like to just please drop it already.

Which we could all learn from. Our bodies are all unique. And every one of them does the miraculous job of holding us up every single day, of mastering as many as five senses, of letting us work and play and laugh and cry and live. If we really want to expend so much energy thinking about our bodies, wouldn’t we be infinitely better off using it to sing their praise?

Every morning, my hair and I do battle. This battle is largely based on the fact that my hair sits right for precisely five minutes a day; the five minutes before I leave the house... meaning that I spend most of every day glancing in every reflective surface to see if it still looks as attrocious as last time. It nearly always does.

On a good day, my hair can look beautiful; I have the kind of golden-brown curls that make Grandmas go weak at the knees. On a bad day, my hair looks like Hermione Granger before she discovered straighteners and Frizz Ease. The problem is that good days are becoming rarer and rarer:

Amy's hair through the ages

And the last time a semi-decent photo was taken of it:

You can see the development from managable and cute to irritating and weird there, I think. Anyway, the reason that my hair and I have such a poor relationship is based largely on the fact that I have a) natural frizz and b) a genetically weird scalp, requiring medicated shampoo.

Over the years, though, I've learned one or two lessons about patience with hateful hair, and I thought that (as hair hasn't been tackled by Body Image Season yet) I'd pass them on...

Appreciate every good hair day you have

Seriously. You may be a member of Facebook's wonderous group "Why isn't my hair cooperating with me?", but if your hair does sit right for one day, enjoy that day!

Nod and smile

When your mother tells you that she loves your hair just the way it is. If you don't, you shouldn't settle for second best.

Do your research, and try out different styles

You might no believe it from those photos, but I have, and I'm now in the process of growing my hair out again, after trying it out short. Short was not a good look for me. Neither was straight; and don't even mention the word "layers"... I now know that the only way to wear my hair is to wear it long, and keep trying products...

On which note;

Try out different products

And don't believe the advertising slogans. Aussi Formula claims to de-frizz any frizz. Oh ho, it failed on me, and some! Also, don't take your friends' advice... unless their hair is identical to your own.

And... wait.

And, if in doubt, write a really angry blog post about your hair-based issues, and see what your readers recommend!

On which note... what do my readers recommend? :)

Good luck, fellow hair-haters - I feel your pain!

LoveLoveLove

- A -

Famous for his “bumster” jeans that became a uniform for boys across the country and the iconic skull motif, it was with great sadness that the fashion world learned last week of the death of Lee Alexander McQueen.

I know that a lot of fashion bloggers felt unable to make a real tribute to the designer and I know that I felt inadequate to do so, so instead I posted a series of photographs from his Spring Summer 2010 collection show at Paris Fashion Week last autumn. (You can see my post here)

But it’s Body Image Season here at BSB and that’s what this post is going to be about (in part!).

In 1998 McQueen caused controversy when he sent double amputee and Para Olympian, Aimee Mullins, down his runway. However, it was not intended to be controversial, merely to illustrate that everyone is beautiful. I came across the following quote when researching this piece and thought it encapsulated – v nicely – the idea behind the Body Image Season:

“It started after a speaking engagement at a conference one day, when a man said to me: ‘You’re really beautiful. You don’t look disabled.’ I wasn’t offended, but it made me think that he obviously didn’t really think of me as disabled, or he wouldn’t have said that to me. I obviously looked like his idea of ‘one of us’, rather than ‘them’.

“It struck me that people found me very sexy, but if you sat them down and said to them, ‘There’s someone over there who’s missing both legs from the shin down’, most people would never find that sensual. Yet when people saw me as a whole package, without realising, they felt all those things that aren’t supposed to happen. Modelling seemed a sneaky way to make a point about that.”

From the Guardian

Lee McQueen recognised the beauty in a woman who might not have been accepted as conventionally beautiful by the rest of society but his desire to see beauty where others might not is something that we need to embrace. It is something that the fashion industry needs to embrace. A beautiful woman with prosthetic legs walking down a runway at Fashion Week should not cause an outcry, in fact, in an ideal world, her legs, or lack thereof shouldn’t even make the headlines. Just as the size of a model shouldn’t make the headlines.

We – society and the fashion industry – need to embrace women (and men) from all backgrounds and of all shapes and sizes and no matter whether they only have one leg or two or none.

I just had to include these photos to show you just how beautiful the legs that McQueen designed for Aimee Mullins were.

From the Daily Mail