Now that the fashion month is being wrapped up and especially New York Fashion Week was marked with inclusivity, I’d like to reflect on the ever-hot topic of the fashion industry – why breakthrough is so difficult for models of non-conventional beauty standards.
Why is it hard for models of non-western looks to break into stardom? Beauty standards are just the top of the ice-berg.
Photo: Internet
Every time I talk about this I get odd looks from around. That’s why I am kind of intimidated to let out this “nonsense” that no matter how erudite and well-cultured we are today, we are still to a great degree moppets of our biological set-up. And the barrier the “non-conventional” models face is due more to our instinctual set-up than our self-imposed beauty standards.
The article has originally appeared at Marie Claire Italia in Italian. You can read it in this link.
Fear – invisible part of the iceberg
To make it clear, what we call “discrimination” or “prejudice” today is our nature-given, wild instinct of “fear” which serves as precursor to protect us from unknown dangers. Anything or anybody that is not like us immediately raises red “danger” flag in our instinctual realm and our self-defense mode gets deployed. That is why we tend to hang out and mingle with those who either look like us or think like us. Over the grounds of shared sense of security we go on to build criteria and standards for many things, including aesthetics and beauty. Anything or anybody that doesn’t correspond to those criteria “is not from us” or “discriminated”.
Why is it hard for models of non-western looks to break into stardom? Beauty standards are just the top of the ice-berg.
Photo: Internet
Now we are talking about manifestations of instinctual fear in social interactions. This is the underlying motive of formulation of groups – from the smallest gangs to nations and religious civilizations. But that fear is not static, in fact is quite the opposite. If not worked on intellectually, it tends to grow bigger and stronger causing anything from benign prejudice to most violent acts of war and orchestrated massacre.
So talking specifically about the models of “non-conventional or let’s say non-western looks”, breaking through is really more about overcoming that underlying instinctual sense of “fear of unknown” than the criteria of aesthetics. I think many models of African or Asian background can relate here.
Fear – “good cop, bad cop”
In fact, fear is not a bad thing at all, on the contrary it is vital for our self-protection. Letting it take a free-rein in our social interactions is what throws everything into maze of unsolvable issues. Handling fear in proportion is crucial and the way to curb this ever growing monster is to work on it intellectually. Train our minds, ears and eyes not to shut down to difference, but educate ourselves. Once our brain stops seeing “the new object” as a danger, defense mode turns off and we kind of start to like it. With time that “once enemy” turns into “normality” and even “first preference”. Nothing is more moldable than our brains. It just needs intentional training through education. Getting familiarized with the object of danger is the way to curb that fateful fear.
The article has originally appeared at Marie Claire Italia in Italian. You can read it in this link.
