I am a part of the Fashion promotion society at my University, For a brief last year I had to choose a subtitle to base a few double-page spreads to be featured in a society Zine, I chose the subtitle beauty myth. I chose this subtitle as this is a topic as I am passionate about making a change in society on how we view ourselves and other people by crushing societies beauty standards.
I have since made a few tweaks to my writing, So below is the recently edited writing that featured within my double-page spreads, as well as images of my contribution to the society zine
Who do you see when you look in the mirror? A question which we never think of or hear often, but subconsciously I feel we all answer that question every time we look in the mirror. We think to ourselves who we want to be and what we want to look like that day. As women, we sit Infront of the mirror and paint on a face to present to the world that day, we stare at our reflections listing out parts of our bodies that were labelled imperfect by societies ever-changing beauty standards, that we conform to as that is what we have been taught to do, we have been led to believe beauty is purely physical and is not for our own pleasure but for someone else’s, But we can, I repeat we can dress up for JUST ourselves. We assess how we want to cover up those imperfections and repeat this nearly every day. Continuously forgetting that beauty is much more complex and far beyond what we just see in the mirror, Beauty is subjective there is no picture that comes with the definition of beauty, it is within the eye of the beholder, and isn’t just physical we can feel it too. Living in a world where social media has become a huge part of our lives, it went from airbrushed models in magazines to now having an overwhelming amount of pressure to look like the distorting Instagram filters, which make our skin appear smooth and polished. These unrealistic expectations make us addicted to looking at our appearance and lead us to console in our mirrors to help us change the way we look, to confine to societies standards, we are a society obsessed with our reflection. I view it as if we have two reflections, one which we show others, the other we keep hidden to ourselves because it is so intimate and pure.
How much time do we spend in the mirror picking out our flaws compared to the time we spend celebrating the way we look? I feel we share one of our most intimate moments with the mirror when wiping away the person we were that day. The mirror sees you at your purest self. This beauty standard that society has set upon us shouldn’t force us to mould ourselves into someone else, it is an evil force, a disease spreading trying to infect people’s minds. It is selling a lie that skin should be clear, and lips should be plumper. What if this standard didn’t exist? what if we put all that wasted energy from bullying ourselves in front of a mirror, into focusing on how we felt when we are looking after ourselves for ourselves, try looking away from our reflection to look at the world around you. I guess if there was a cure for this disease, the question, I would then ask who do you want to see when you look in the mirror?
