I don't think that quote has ever been more fitting than in the case of Melissa Smith. She got in touch to tell me her remarkable story about how despite a disability, which causes the equivalent of third degree burns on her body each day, she has embraced her body and a sense of style.

I was born with a rare genetic skin blistering condition, called Epidermolysis Bullosa (or EB as it’s better known). The best way I can describe it, at least the type I have, is waking up every day with new second degree burns, caused by smallest amount of friction or trauma, like turning over in bed. The effects of EB are incredibly visible; I have to wear bandages covering my limbs, I regularly have blisters and wounds on my face and neck, my left eye is scarred, and I’m often in my wheelchair.

As you can imagine, this can have a devastating effect on one’s body image and self-esteem. Especially when people decide to stand staring and pointing in public, or ask the ever-tactful question “what’s wrong with you?” I’m happy for people to ask, but phrasing is important!

But among the things that make me happy are clothes. I love clothes. I adore them, and I always have!! I am a qualified practitioner of retail therapy, and I happily brush up on my shopping skills at every available opportunity. I love the look, the feel, even the smell of clothes, all a part of anticipating the first time you will wear them. Several of my friends have requested that, should anything happen to me, I bequeath my extensive wardrobe to them. Which is a bit worrying, now I think about it…!

At face value, an entire day spent shopping often seems like a vacuous waste of time, but clothes and accessories can have almost magical powers. They can make you feel on top of the world, when really it’s resting on your shoulders, and they can help you to love parts of your body that you usually loathe. For example, my feet are a source of great pain to me, but when I look down at my beloved biker boots or patent wedges…all is forgotten (for a while at least!). My belly, distended because several surgeries, is much less troubling when underneath my favourite French Connection or Ducie dresses. And why would anyone stare at my hands when they can look at a gorgeous, one-off bracelet? When I want to hide my sore neck, it’s just an opportunity to wear a great scarf or cowl-neck knit.

Clothes make people look at me differently, but in a positive way. More and more often people ask not why I wear my bandages, or why I’m in my wheelchair, but who made my jacket or where I got my dress. How I dress allows me to embrace the fact that I stand out from the crowd, and use it to my advantage. Clothes and accessories level the body image playing field in many ways, too. I mean, how many women are lucky enough to be able to pull off every style, colour, material? Being short, very long earrings and maxi dresses will never do me any favours, but that’s nothing to do with my disability! Yes there are styles and cuts that do more for my body image than others (shorts and tights? Yes! Bodycon? No!), and I can’t wear sleeveless tops without a shrug of some sort, or heels bigger than an inch-and-a-half. But when I wear my favourite outfit, I feel like I could dance down the street, singing “I’m Every Woman”. Because we are all the same really, aren’t we? Our hang-ups are just concentrated on different areas, or sparked by different events. We just need to know our bodies, and how to work with them, not against them.

What we wear can be a great medium for making statement, whether about politics, religion, culture or ethics. But I think the most important statement we can make, in this age of what borders on body fascism is, simply, “I feel great about myself today”.

You can follow Melissa on Twitter and/ or Tumblr

I'm taking care of BSB for the next few day's while Amy is lucky enough to be at London Fashion Week. Her task for me was to find two guest bloggers, the first of which is for today. I'm lucky enough to know the brilliant Alli Denehy of What Alli Thinks, she bravely agreed to talk about how she viewed her own body as a growing teen and how things have changed.

Being a teenager is supposed to be the best time of your life. You are believed to become an individual. Your body grows in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways that we just can’t help. It’s how we are supposed to be.

Recently I stumbled upon this picture when looking for underwear online and it’s transformed my opinion of plus size women. I’ve always thought I’d have to hide away under my clothes, not show off anything because I had convinced myself that no one would want to look at me. I thought they would be disgusted and appalled by it. Well I was wrong, I have now found a pair of and I’m not afraid to show off my curves.

Fashion and style is all about you feeling comfortable with yourself. Not what everyone else is doing or wearing. Do what you want to do because people will love you more for being yourself then being one of the many clones.

Whatever day of the week it is you should feel in love with yourself. Self confidence will get you so far in life.

1. 1. Write a list of three things you hate about yourself. Even if it just the way your hair flicks out the wrong way at the end to the way your hips stick out. Mine would be these...
2. - My thighs and the fact I have to wear size 16 trousers because of them
3. - Broad shoulders, halter tops are a no-no in my eyes.
4. - In between size feet, I can never find shoes to fit.
5. 2. Now you have you have this piece of paper, rip it into a million pieces. You don’t need to write anything down about what you hate, your all amazing, even with these “hang-ups”
6. 3. Put on your favourite outfit, dresses, shorts, skirts- anything that will show you and your beautiful selves off. Mines this dress. It shows off my curviness and my legs which if I’m honest I love about myself. I love them even more when wearing a pair of heels for a night out.
7. 4. This last step is the most important of them all. Go out. Get all your friends round and do it together, have a bottle of wine, write the silly lists and rip them up, get ready for a night out and then all together go show yourselves off, there is no point hiding behind closed doors. Who’s going to see you then?

What is the point of this exercise I hear you ask? Well it’s to prove you can all are beautiful no matter if you have wide hips, small breasts, flicky hair, bad skin. We are all perfect and we don’t need to be clones to prove it. Individuality is the key to life and don’t let anyone tell you different.

As a teenager we are always going to hate the way we look all because we want to look like the latest celebrities and follow the latest trends. I’m constantly worrying. It’s normal. Every person in existence is going to worry about the way they look once in their teenage years. We always have these niggles that something’s wrong .Nothing is wrong, everyone is their own being.
and as the song goes It's my life It's now or never I ain't gonna live forever I just wanna live while I'm alive. Live how you want to live, look how you want to look.

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.

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!

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!

Image: Operation Beautiful
In the near-future, an interview with Caitlin of Operation Beautiful will be posted here :)

I think that, sometimes, no matter how rational our thoughts are, we need to be reminded that we're beautiful just the way we are. Even if you don't usually feel bad about the way you look, everyone has bad days, when things start to get them down - bad hair days tend to be what I suffer from most frequently, and I found that the easiest way not to feel bad about my massive frizz of hair was to remember something that someone I admire once said;

"I won't ever straighten my hair to impress a guy again"
- Taylor Swift

So, I thought I'd collect some positive body image quotes to remind you all that you're beautiful; pick the one that's most relevant for you, write it on a post-it note, stick it to your mirror, and always remember that you are beautiful.

"Find yourself and your own unique, signature style, rather than trying to be 'of the moment'"
- Dita Von Teese

"There are flowers everywhere, for those who bother to look"
- Henri Matisse

"Wear a fabulous smile, great jewelry, and know that you are totally and utterly in control"
- Donatella Versace

"Beauty is not in the face - beauty is a light in the heart"
- Kahil Gibran

"I think I've become more comfortable about being a human being"
- Cameron Diaz

"I think that whatever size or shape body you have, it's important to embrace it and get down! The female body is something that's so beautiful. I wish women would be proud of their bodies and not dis other women for being proud of theirs!"
- Christina Aguilera

"Eat healthily, exercise regularly, and listen to really good music"
- Perez Hilton

"I've never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful"
- Anon

"Beauty comes in all sizes, not just size five"
- Roseanne

"I don't like standard beauty - there is no beauty without strangeness"
- Karl Largerfeld

The most inspirational thing I found when I was looking for quotes for this post, however, is not a quote at all; it is a secret sent in to PostSecret months and months ago now... and I wanted to share it with you all;

(: Very poignant...

Which are your favourite quotes? And have you got any of your own to share?

LoveLoveLove

- A -

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