Cameron Russell: A Role Model

Cameron Russell (photo: Twitter)

Cameron Russell is a Victoria's Secret angel. She's walked in runway shows, done print ads, and starred in commercials for the world's largest lingerie company. She's also worked for some of my favorite designers: Vivienne Westwood, Chanel, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, and Dolce and Gabbana.

Cameron did a TED talk about being a highly successful model. This is the link: http://www.ted.com/talks/cameron_russell. I never put links in my pieces, but I wanted to today to draw your attention to it--it's a great talk. Please go watch it right now! Then come back and read the rest of this piece. ;-)

In this talk, Cameron talks about how she's won the "genetic lottery." She's tall, she's thin, she's white. Our society has decided that when it comes to appearances, those are the things that matter. Cameron mentions that she's gotten out of traffic tickets because of her looks as well as gotten free items when she's forgotten her money.  Those are the things she has been, as she puts it, "cashing in" on.

Cameron talked about and showed pictures of the amount of work that professionals do on her to get the photos they want. Do they edit photos? Yes. But she also talks about the hair, makeup, clothes, and photography that go into making the photos we see. Honestly, I probably wouldn't recognize her if I passed her on the street. She's gorgeous in her every day photos, but she doesn't look anything like the cover girl photos that thousands of people see. For more on photo editing, check out this post I wrote a few months ago.

Cameron mentioned that little girls come up to her and tell her that they want to be models when they grow up. Cameron's first question to the kids is, "Why? You can be anything." She says that she is in that top echelon of girls with "the skinniest thighs, the shiniest hair," but she's still incredibly insecure about the way she looks. She has to think about the way she looks every day.

Cameron graduated from Columbia University. She is realistic that she won't be able to model forever. She's already 25, which means she's already nearing the end of her modeling career. I have a feeling we'll be hearing great things from her.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Cultural Interest: Sex or Quality Stories?

I guess I should be happy that I'm getting a spike in traffic right now. The frustrating thing is, though, that yesterday the post I wrote a long time ago about Victoria's Secret models has gotten over nine times the traffic the post I wrote yesterday about family has gotten. For those of you who have forgotten what post I'm talking about, here is the link to the original post.

Now, while I admit that my writing has faltered in quality a bit over the last month due to a medication I'm trying out for my fibromyalgia, overall what I write is pretty good quality. Conversational, yes, and so a little more casual than some people like, but overall, decent quality. I also admit that I like couture fashion and, therefore, support the fashion industry. I am so frustrated, though, with the fact that 90% naked underfed women are getting this much attention for walking in a straight line down a catwalk and back up the catwalk while I work my butt off and go essentially unnoticed unless I have a post in which I am 90% naked (not something I'm really into).

I don't necessarily want to be famous. I don't want "celebrity status." I don't want to have to hide from paparazzi. I just wish that our society cared more about quality work that actually matters instead of 5'11" girls with concave stomachs who wear bedazzled wings and lingerie. I know this sounds like a massive case of envy, but it's not. I've done the super-skinny thing, and I'm fine. I don't need to do that anymore. What this little penned outburst is about is that our society doesn't care about what we need to care about when it comes to thriving and not just surviving (cliche, I know, but it's what I mean).

I think when Hurricane Sandy tore up the Northeast we all saw how people of every tax bracket and political party and race and sexual orientation came together and helped the people who needed help, no matter who they were. Going back even further, I think we all saw the nation come together right after the 9/11 attacks happened. The thing is, though, it shouldn't take a catastrophic event to bring people together for a common cause.

Now I know that fashion isn't something we all need to come together against or anything crazy like that. But I do know that there are better ways than watching unrealistically skinny women walk around in next to nothing to discover your fantasies. That's Victoria's Secret's "thing" whenever anyone says anything about their print ads or their runway shows: "It's about fantasy." Gag me with a spoon. That's absolute bulls#!t, in my opinion. I worked for them for a summer and their schtick to sell overpriced lingerie is by attempting to make you look like the girl in the ad.

By taking a quick look around, it seems to me that I'm on the outside this time. Sex sells and just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's going to change. While I understand it's not going to change, I am disappointed. I don't mean to sound snobbish, but I guess I just expect more from people than I should.

Goodness, I've allowed myself a rather excessive rant. As always, thank you so much for reading and continuing to support my site. I'll see you tomorrow!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Real Woman Campaign

The approach of Black Friday means we are inundated with commercials showing all the insanely good deals that we will be able to get. Something I've been noticing this year is that the models in all of the commercials look so small! I am a small person and I am not incredibly judgmental of other small girls. I like being small and I can understand other girls wanting to be small. But there are a few commercials this year that have just blown my mind in terms of how small the models are.

I know I've talked about Victoria's Secret before and I'm going to mention them again: their holiday commercial makes me feel scared for the girls in it. They are tiny. Their knees and collarbones are just sticking out there and you can see their hipbones and ribs through their skin. It really freaked me out because I was anorexic for years and these girls have no way of getting that small while staying healthy.

Kohl's has a commercial out for their weekend sales and the models are so tiny! They're in clothing, but they are gaunt and they look like stick figures. There is a little girl in the commercial, too, and she's also incredibly small.

What are we teaching our kids, especially our girls? That being small means you're pretty and sexy and guys will want you? That's pretty much all I'm seeing.

I think it would be smarter to use real women in commercials. Think about it: how often do you see something on a model, think it's beautiful, you go buy it, and it looks completely different on you? That happens to me all the time! Yes, I'm small, but I'm also short, which means that what I see on the models doesn't look the same when I put it on. We should realize that 35% of America is obese and even those of us who aren't obese don't look like models. Models aren't realistic when it comes to showing us what clothes will look like on our bodies.

This year, if I buy a piece of clothing, I'm going to take a picture of myself in it and send it to the store I bought it from so they can see what it looks like on a real person. We all should do this! Please join me in the "Real Woman Campaign: Showing Retailers Reality" and send your pictures in. We won't get anything changed unless we push to make it change. Let's show the reality of the situation; be real women and show the reality!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Mini-Experiment: Swimsuit Photo Retouching

One of my friends sent me this article this morning about retouched Victoria's Secret Swim photos. It shows one side by side photo of the untouched photo and the retouched photo, along with a list of things they touched up on the photo.

Side by side: original vs touched up. Photos courtesy of Victoria's Secret.

This is the original article back in August with all the leaked untouched photos of Victoria's Secret Angel, Doutzen. After I saw all the original photos, I went the Victoria's Secret Swim site and found some of the other retouched photos in their ads. Here are three of them along with a few of the things they changed.

Untouched photo.

This is the retouched photo of the tankini to the left. Here is a list of the things they changed:

• The color of the tankini.
• Made the skirt flat across the front.
• Removed the pooch by her armpit.
• Took away the lines in the bend of her elbow.
• Removed some of the pooching on her left hip.
• Pulled in the tankini top by her left hip to make it look like it fits better.
• Got rid of all the bunching of the top above her right hip.
• Took away the fly-aways in her hair and moved it around a little bit.
• Made her left leg skinnier on the inside.
• Flattened out her right hip below the skirt.
• Something to her chin. It actually looks like they pulled her jaw up in the retouch to make her face look more square.
• Removed some of the shadow on her stomach.
• Obviously: lighting.

Untouched photo.

This is the retouched photo of the tankini at left (yes, it's the same tankini). What they changed:

• Her eyebrow lines between her eyebrows.
• Face shape--in the untouched photo, you can see much more definition on the left side of her face than in the retouched photo.
• Removed hip bone shadow.
• Flattened skirt out.
• Put side skirt strings into a bow.
• Flattened outside of right thigh.
• Removed bunching of top on her left side.
• Erased longest piece of hair peeking out from behind her back.
• Flattened out armpit pooch on her right side.
• Defined the shadow on her boobs to make them look bigger.
• Again, obviously, lighting.

Untouched photo.

Here is the retouched photo from the ad of the bikini pictured left. What they changed:

• She's wearing underwear in the untouched photo.
• Removed the pooching on her right side below the band of the top.
• Made her ribs look less boney.
• Smoothed out her right arm--she has sand or something on it in the untouched photo.
• Filled in her belly button a little bit. These are all silly, but this one really doesn't make any sense!
• Smoothed out her right thigh.
• Got rid of some of the fly-aways.
• Touched up her left elbow area.
• Made her chest look less boney.
• Removed a mole on her neck and right shoulder.
• Lighting!!!

Erin Heatherton, Angel.

Erin Heatherton, another Victoria's Secret Angel, said this to Fashionista about the airbrushing: "Retouching is an essential part of our job, you know. We're not selling reality; we're selling a story. It's all about creating this fantasy. And I don't think people should confuse fantasy and reality because no one is perfect--we all know that, and I think people should embrace themselves and not really focus on where people are depicted as perfect and where they're not."

This is such a matter-of-fact quote! She acts like all of us should just assume that everything is retouched. They don't advertise their edits, though. Even when I worked at Victoria's Secret, we never talked about the models except for when an associate would start the Who-Is-Your-Favorite-Angel? conversation.

All of this editing talk got me wondering about the VS Fashion Show. They tape it almost a month before it airs. This year they're taping on November 7, but it's not airing until December 4. I understand that the point of the show is to do a Christmas preview, but why not do a live fashion show on December 4? I spent about 20 minutes looking around the internet to find out...and found nothing. But why do they need four weeks between taping and airing the show? It makes me wonder if there is more than just audio editing to do of the taping.

So, if all of these Victoria's Secret ads are just "creating this fantasy," then why do so many women work so hard to try to be this fantasy? All this "fantasy" is just making men and women expect perfection, and when we're not, because, as Erin said, "No one is perfect," it becomes a disappointment. Why should we keep buying $50+ bras that will supposedly make us a perfect fantasy, if they really don't? All this does is make women feel incredibly insecure because we will never be what men and other women see. So then a new bra comes out at Victoria's Secret--a "bombshell"--and suddenly we think, "Oh good! This will make me so much sexier because that's what the ad says and shows!" And then we go buy the new bra for $60. And then we're disappointed again.

We are being played by the marketers of the lingerie industry. I refuse to feel insecure. I refuse to allow retouching to deter me from loving myself. Still committing to confidence!

I decided to do a little experiment: take my own photo in my favorite VS bikini and show it unedited, then edited. The bikini I'm wearing is from the 2010 collection I think. I know it's "out of season" but it's still my favorite! Here's the photo as it was taken with the exception of cropping it closer. The only reason I cropped it is that it was a landscape layout and there was a lot of wall that didn't need to be there!

Edited photo.

And then here is the same photo edited. I don't have any airbrushing tools--just basic editing. I played with the exposure, contrast, highlights, temperature, shadow, and of course, kept the previous cropping.

The first one I took is obviously "real." The other one looks "prettier" in terms of the fact that since I changed the exposure, there are more highlights, but it's not what I look like in real life. I think it's a pretty picture, but it's not me. Also, there is a lot that professional editors would need to change: hair, folds on the bottom of the bikini, armpit shadows, eyelashes (I didn't use enough mascara), and cleavage (I don't have any!).

So. Love yourself. Stay confident. Don't allow these "fantasies" to change how you feel about yourself. Even though my second photo is more acceptable or whatever it is, the woman in the first photo is the woman my fiance is in love with and the woman I am in love with. The first girl is me. The second girl is me + special effects, and this is really basic editing; nothing like what they do with the Victoria's Secret photos. Stay confident! You're beautiful!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

#committoconfidence

2012 VS Fantasy Bra! Commit to Confidence!

Before I get started with this non-political post, I just want to say: keep working for whatever campaign you're working for! I know you're tired of campaigning and seeing political posts in your feed--I am! I have Facebook friends threatening to "unsubscribe" from anyone who continues to post political statuses. But we only have 2 1/2 weeks left until this election! Keep fighting for the candidate (or candidates, if you're working on senate or local campaigns, as well) you think will help us the most. Also, if you're suddenly interested in politics just because of the election, try staying interested in politics and what's happening in our country after the election! Election-time-only interest does not a politically-minded person make. It's like being a "Creaster"--going to church only on Christmas and Easter. ;)

This year's Victoria's Secret "fantasy bra" was revealed recently*. It cost $2.5 million to make. Here is a  look at some of the "fantasy bras." The first five fantasy bras aren't included in this slideshow, so I looked around and found this fantastic blog that has photos of all the fantasy bras.
The table of the history of the fantasy bras below is copied from Wikipedia.

Year	Name	Model	Value	Appeared in fashion show	refs
1996	Million Dollar Miracle Bra	Claudia Schiffer	$1,000,000	No	[97]
1997	Diamond Dream Bra	Tyra Banks	$3,000,000	No
1998	Dream Angel Fantasy Bra	Daniela Pestova	$5,000,000	No
1999	Millennium Bra	Heidi Klum	$10,000,000	No	[94]
2000	Red Hot Fantasy Bra/Panties	Gisele Bündchen	$15,000,000	No	[95]
2001	Heavenly Star Bra	Heidi Klum	$12,500,000	Yes	[98]
2002	Star of Victoria Fantasy Bra	Karolina Kurkova	$10,000,000	Yes	[99]
2003	Very Sexy Fantasy Bra	Heidi Klum	$11,000,000	Yes	[100]
2004	Heavenly "70" Fantasy Bra	Tyra Banks	$10,000,000	No	[101]
2005	Sexy Splendor Fantasy Bra	Gisele Bündchen	$12,500,000	Yes	[102]
2006	Hearts On Fire Diamond Fantasy Bra	Karolina Kurkova	$6,500,000	Yes	[99]
2007	Holiday Fantasy Bra	Selita Ebanks	$4,500,000	Yes	[103]
2008	Black Diamond Fantasy Miracle Bra	Adriana Lima	$5,000,000	Yes	[104]
2009	Harlequin Fantasy Bra	Marisa Miller	$3,000,000	Yes	[105]
2010	Bombshell Fantasy Bra	Adriana Lima	$2,000,000	Yes	[106]
2011	Fantasy Treasure Bra	Miranda Kerr	$2,500,000	Yes	[107]
2012	Floral Fantasy Bra	Alessandra Ambrosio	$2,500,000	Yes	[108]

Now, if I did the math correctly, making 17 fantasy bras has totaled $116 million. Wow. That is a lot of money. I started freaking out when I saw this. Where do these bras go? Who buys them? Is there a museum where $116M of diamonds, sapphires, and other precious gems is just sitting on busts?

None of the bras have ever been sold. Wikipedia cites this article from the Wall Street Journal saying that the 2004 bra was purchased, but in the WSJ article, it states, "None of the fantasy bras offered by Victoria's Secret each holiday since 1996 has ever sold, though a 42-carat Harry Winston diamond on the 2004 bra found a buyer." Actually, the bras are not even kept after the fashion show, according to this other Wall Street Journal article; they're dismantled! Fashionologie says that it actually took Victoria's Secret until 2010 to admit that they had dismantled the previous bras. I don't know why it took them so long! I think it would actually allow women like me, who think the fashion show is ridiculous, to appreciate it a little more.

So, what does this year's $2.5 million bra represent?

• A $10.7 billion U.S. lingerie industry ($29B global market)
• Victoria's Secret, worth about $4.5 billion
• A $12 million fashion show
• Alessandra Ambriosio only five months after she had her baby!
• Thousands of little girls who hope to someday get their "Angel Wings"

Now, I am not going to sit here and pretend that I don't like Victoria's Secret or I don't wear it or anything like that. I wear Victoria's Secret lingerie almost exclusively. I think I have one or two Calvin Klein things, but other than that, it's all VS. I worked there for a summer job a few years ago. Here are some of the things I learned while working there that stuck with me:

• Feeling good about yourself shouldn't have to come from the outside, but having adorable bras sure helps.
• PINK (the teen part of VS) has some incredibly suggestive sayings on the butts of their underwear and watching middle schoolers buy that underwear is sickening.
• Feeling sexy, regardless of age or size, is attainable. You do not have to shop at VS to achieve this.
• VS bras are pretty much the most comfortable bras I've ever had.

I love lingerie, as you all saw in the yoga photo I posted a while back. I think it's great! It allows you to dress up, it's fun, it's cute, if you pick out it right you get something that fits like a glove, etc. It's not always easy, though. What if you're having a "fat" day? What if you're massively insecure and you put on this amazing lingerie that is supposed to make you feel so good and you just look at yourself in the mirror and see the problem spots that are now exposed (this can happen in any outfit, but lingerie really exposes it)? 

I think that we need to learn to feel sexy because of who we are, not because of what you stuff your body into on any given day. I sometimes feel the sexiest in sweats and a t-shirt, just being me, because it's me. Not me dressing like some model in $75 lingerie, but me being comfortable in my own skin and not needing to dress it up, because I look great and I feel great, even if I'm just in sweats.

Close to 10 million of us are going to watch the hour-long Victoria's Secret Fashion Show this year while feeling envy, admiration, and excitement. What if 10 million of us committed to feeling as good about ourselves as we are jealous of those models for an hour? In my experience, the women I envy most are not the ones with great bodies, legs for days, or giant boobs. The confident women are the ones I envy. So be confident! If it takes a new bra set, a new haircut, or a new shade of lipstick, that's fine! Just take that immediate boost of confidence that you feel when you put on that new popping lipstick with you even after you take it off! It makes all the difference! 

10 million strong! This is my challenge to you, with you. Please share this post with everyone you know, and come up with a way to show that you commit to "10 Million Committed to Confidence" and post it with the hashtag #committoconfidence! The VS Fashion Show is going to air on December 4. I think we can have 10 million people commit to feel confident for one hour by then. Let's do it!

My commitment to confidence!

"Be the change you wish to be in the world." --Gandhi

*Due to possible copyright issues, I am not including a photo of the new bra.