Today I am doing a performance art piece in the Jardin des Tuileries Espace Ephémères, outside of the Karl Lagerfeld show for Paris Fashion Week. I will be lying on the ground feigning death, my body partially covered in black trash-bags crisscrossed with white ribbons and mesh covering my eyes. My face will be painted white with blue lips to accentuate the death imagery, my legs will be covered in black tights, and my feet will be in Chanel ballet flats. The white signs propped next to me on the ground will read: SIZE ZERO KILLS.
I spent my early adolescence poring over fashion magazines and skinny models, and by the time I was 20, I was hospitalized for anorexia. I finally realized that viewing thin models and absurd retouching contributed to the serious distortion of my own body image. When I was in the hospital, I was horrified to meet 13-year-old girls on feeding tubes, barely alive, still worshipping Chanel and Vogue as though the fashion industry was their savior.
Karl Lagerfeld has promoted the illegitimate claim that size-zero models are better at selling products than models at healthier weights. He famously lost 90 pounds in a year and uses the anti-obesity card as a way of deflecting from the anorexia issue. Our culture is struggling with a problem of extremes, and if the media’s beauty ideals return to a more balanced vision of naturalness and health, then perhaps it will encourage the same in the general population.
We are bombarded with images of impossible perfections that feed on our insecurities, driving people to dangerous dieting, plastic surgeries, and in the extreme case, anorexia ending in death. Too-thin, too-young models perpetuate a culture that is afraid of embracing beauty as a thing of depth and variety that spans across all ages, races, and shapes. The new female beauty ideal starts with changing the sample size from zero. The concept of beauty has always been tied to the saturation of images in a given time, and if those images are created by society, then they can be changed by society too.
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I am SO happy to read about you helping to promote this issue! I was a part of a all-girl media production organization for two years (reelgrrls.org <–they're awesome) and it's all about working to change society's perspective on what being beautiful is. I hope it goes well! Major props!
This is going to be amazing, congratulations. It's wonderful and inspiring what you are doing and I only wish that I could be there.
Love-
Leah
Good for you. If anything it will raise interest and get into the newspaper! Your honesty about your own personal battle is refreshing. You were strong enough to overcome a debilitating illness that cripples so many women worldwide and you deserve kudos for that.
Report back on how the show went!
Hiii,
I saw you, i took a picture of you.
You are very brave.
my blog: http://weareallprostitues.blogspot.com/
xoxo
Thanks for all the support so far! It was an unbelievably inspiring experience .. I was freezing cold and trembling on the ground, forced to leave the Tuileries Gardens after an hour (by very nice security guards of the Louvre who were concerned for my health), and then I showed my signs at the entrance, with the enormous phallus of the Obelisque de Louxor at Place de la Concorde .. most of the beautiful skinny women passing by seemed to agree with my message..
GOOD FOR YOU!! I too suffered from anorexia when I was younger and I am so glad to hear that you recovered and are able to use your experiences to spread the word. Very proud!
http://thebusiestbee.blogspot.com/
Thanks so much for sharing! I SO appreciate your support ..
xxo H