Beauty Undressed

 

This season, clothing designers are giving a respectful nod to the maternity set. I have heard interesting commentary from my women friends on this trend. Those who are pregnant have expressed gratitude - they say they have not had to buy maternity wear yet this year! Those who are single have expressed relief. One friend in particular commented, ‘when I wear these styles, I can breathe a sigh of relief and just let it all hang out’ - all said as she was pointing to her toned and tanned midsection.

This year, the fashion pendulum has swung back around toward the opposite extreme from where it fell last season. Jeans have gone ‘hi-rise’. Shirt lengths have dropped to mid-waist, and sometimes mid-thigh. In place of the skinny mini and skinny jeans, we have boot-cut and flare. Midriff-baring tops have at last fallen out of favor in deference to the ‘tunic’. And suddenly, on the literal heels of last year’s platform stilettos, ballet flats are back in fashion.

Now, I will admit that I have little real interest in fashion, or in its trends (anyone who has had even a cursory look at my wardrobe can attest to that). But I have plenty of emotional baggage left over from my years of exposure to the fashion industry’s chaotic whims, and that at least entitles me to vent!

Since this is the first Beauty Undressed column, allow me to introduce myself. I am a recovered anorexic and bulimic. By ‘recovered’, I mean that I have ceased to use my disordered eating behaviors to cope with life’s challenges and choices. I consider this to be my life’s work - the ongoing achievement of a lifetime that I will always be proudest of. However, it is a daily discipline to maintain my recovery, one that requires continual vigilance on my part. I have only to walk out my door, turn on the television, go to the movies, talk to a friend or even drive down the street in order to encounter all sorts of images and ideas that encourage me to give the eating disorder another chance.

It is for this very reason that I am up in arms about the latest fashion trend. As consumers, we are being pulled about relentlessly like salt-water taffy, snapped mercilessly in two like a rubber band that has been stretched beyond bearing. One season we are asked to squeeze all parts of ourselves into short and shorter, tight and tighter. The very next season we are encouraged to let it all go with the flow - the flowing fabric, that is. Meanwhile, the diet and weight management industry has ballooned in kind into a sixty-billion-dollar-a-year enterprise…all of which just confirms that we are in store for even more of the same in years to come.

Last month in Cosmopolitan magazine, I encountered the ultimate indignity. Dubbed ‘DoctorsSayYes.net’ (please do not go there and make me regret advertising it!), this Cosmo-endorsed partnership of plastic surgeons claims to offer free consultations and guaranteed financing to all first time customers for any cosmetic procedure. If you read the fine print on the site, you will notice that the consultation is only free if you give the green light to the procedure. If you decline to go under the knife, you will be assessed a $49.99 office visit fee (which also begs the question of why the Cosmo ad states that the consultation itself is a ‘$250.00 value’?)

Beyond that, I personally must question the medical integrity of any consortium of practicing physicians, board-certified though they may be, who claim that ‘absolutely no one will be turned down’ for any type of procedure that is requested. But even beyond that, I simply cannot stomach the idea that beauty is only an incision, or a loan, away.

We are not fixer-uppers. Far from it. We are JUST FINE just as we are. We are beautiful JUST AS WE ARE. It took me twenty long years of my life to begin to believe this. And get this - I found the proof I was looking for deep INSIDE of me, and not on the surface where I had been encouraged for so many years to look for it.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever spied someone from across the room and thought to yourself, ‘that is the most attractive person I have ever seen. I MUST meet this person!’ only to realize after conversing for a few moments that they were not as attractive as you had at first perceived? Conversely, have you ever met someone whose physical appeal was subtle initially, but in conversation, their attractiveness suddenly became as vibrant as the fire of a hundred rising suns? 

This is because the bulk of what makes us beautiful or attractive to someone else arises from within. Others respond first to our energy and spirit, then to the power of our mental thoughts and ideas, and finally, to our physical expression in face and form. We respond to ourselves in exactly the same way in our natural state. We are TAUGHT to experience ourselves from the outside in - it does not come naturally.

You will find your unique beauty only when you undress your concepts of what beauty is and where it resides. When you realize that the fashion industry has no more substance than the emperor walking down the street in his new clothes, you will cease to lend your support and endorsement to a way of life that kills twelve times more young women each year from self-induced starvation than any other single cause of death.

In that moment, you will wake up, RISE up, OPEN your mouth and USE your powerful voice to DEMAND your right to experience beauty wherever, however and in whomever you choose to perceive it. We live in a beautiful world, full of unrepeatable, irreplaceably beautiful people, places and things. What a waste of a life to miss out on our opportunity to experience this for ourselves!

Learn more about Key to Life & Beauty Undressed

P.S. Be sure to SIGN the ‘I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders’ petition to DEMAND mental health parity for eating disorders treatment!