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| A friend from school bringing up societies standards of beauty on Facebook |
After looking into the feminist debate further, I have wound up more confused than ever. Feminism is such a wide issue that is constantly being talked about. Emma Watson's #HeforShe speech at the UN hit the headlines. Celebrities are now labelling themselves as feminists. 2014 was a great year in terms of change and I'm sure 2015 will only bring more supporters and change more minds and issues in society. During my research, I looked in an old post from Susie Bubble. Having followed her blog for a few years now, I've always liked how she delivers an intelligent review of shows and it's always interesting to see her opinion having seen collections in the flesh. The post I returned to was her reaction to Chanel's SS15 show at Paris Fashion Week last year. As I follow her on Instagram, I was able to watch the comments unfold when she opened up the floor to debate over Chanel's feminist rally for a finale.
Truthfully, I was a little taken aback at Lagerfeld's decision to stage a mock protest. My opinions nearly match Susie Bubble's and she was able document and summarise my thoughts towards the show extremely well. One sentence however stood out to me.
"Whatever Lagerfeld’s true stance on feminism is, it is difficult to believe the conviction of a uniform cast of women, held up to an unrealistic standard of beauty, waving such banners, whilst wearing clothes that are prohibitively expensive."
Standards of beauty have always been thrown at young girls and there is always pressure on being the perfect ideal in both the West and the Far East. This session of research has changed the flow of my project and I have now decided to look into a different concept that I perhaps feel more strongly about.
Whilst appearances and beauty was never really that big of a concern at my school (greasy hair was the norm, unfinished homework was not), I remember going on yearly swimming camps to Spain and being surrounded by my teammates who were obsessed with getting a golden glow. I thought they were silly but that wasn't because I knew they were conforming to beauty ideals thrown upon them. I thought they were silly because I was conforming to my own standard- the Asian one. There is so much to talk about when considering the standard of beauty in Asia but it revolves around a few main points: 'white, translucent skin', 'a tall nose', 'double eye-lids' and 'a v-line'. To put it into perspective, here's a collection of all the Miss Korea 2013 participants who eerily look alike due to the growing trend of getting plastic surgery which is considered the norm for young girls.
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| Miss Korea 2013 participants - image from Google |
As someone who is without the idealistic standard of beauty for my race (and is also not considered beautiful by Western standards either), I would really like to focus on how beauty ideals are pushed onto women. As of yet, I am not sure what route I'll take but I want to create a film and corresponding book (rather than an article) to fully portray my own personal opinion on the ideals being imposed on me. For the shoot, I am still planning on basing my shoot on my research into the #freethenipple campaign but I wish for the final images to be tasteful and somewhat romantic and calm. As of yet, I'm not sure exactly what it is about #freethenipple campaign that I will be drawing out to use as inspiration for the photoshoot but the common underlying theme for this project will be about praising the female body (and face) for what it is, refusing to change the appearance of oneself for the gratification of others just because society tells you to do so.
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