#TheseAbsurdExpectations by creedaniels1

#These Absurd Expectations

For my senior capstone, I created an advertising campaign that exposes the harsh expectations inflicted by the fashion industry on fashion magazine consumers, and how that subsequently impacts societal expectations of real-life women.

#TheseAbsurdExpectations

A Letter from the Editor

efore I started diving

into my capstone and figuring out the logistics of what I wanted to focus on, I first started identifying things that I enjoyed doing. For my end of term project in my Graphic Design 3 class we had a ‘Catalog of Curiosities’ project. This project was a semester long collection of materials, ideas, and techniques that we found ourselves being inspired by. I chose to focus my efforts on the technique of collaging, a physical process that I had always enjoyed doing but never got the chance to base a whole project around it. I decided to solely use fashion magazines for my collaging. At the end of the project, I created 21 collages. These collages reflected growth, exploration, and more than anything, curiosity. I enjoyed this process of collaging so much that I knew it was a perfect a element for my senior capstone. With one part certain, I began exploring different ideas of how I could combine collaging 4

with more of a significant meaning or idea

of fashion magazines is to sell product

behind it. Fashion has always been a huge

and to achieve this, they use beautiful,

part of my life. I have been reading and

skinny models. However somewhere in

consuming fashion magazines since I was a

between the purpose of fashion magazines

little girl. It is a material that I am familiar and

and its consumers, a miscommunication

comfortable with, especially after the work

occurred that has been prevalent for over

I had done with it in the previous semester.

50 years. I really wanted to focus on the

For that reason, I decided to use fashion

absurdity of how real-life women are now

magazines as my subject matter, however

supposed to act, look, and behave like

the bigger meaning was still missing. It took

the high fashion models in the magazines.

several days, a large amount of research,

My intent for each one of my collages is

and some feedback from peers to truly

to inflict a feeling on the viewer. By using

find what it was that I wanted to get across

the technique of collage, the abstractness

in these collages. For my senior capstone,

of it is also supposed to promote the idea

I created an advertising campaign that

that their no good or bad way to feel from

exposes the harsh expectations inflicted by

these, considering that everyone struggles

the fashion industry on fashion magazine

with these expectations differently than

consumers, and how that subsequently

others, so that one collage might hit harder

impacts societal expectations of real-life

than another. All in all, I wanted to bring

women. In the end, I created 6 collages

awareness to the absurd expectations

that touch on 5 huge societal expectations:

inflicted on women from society that have

height, weight, age, wealth and emotion.

been influenced by fashion magazines. This

These topics are subjects that I believe

ad campaign, #TheseAbsurdExpectations,

that people in today’s society, whether

is a voice for the people who are struggling

purposeful or not, are always conscious,

with different aspects of themselves because

aware of, and always will have good and bad

they think they do not match society’s

connotations. One of the main purposes

expectations of ‘beautiful’.

#TheseAbsurdExpectations

HEIGHT With elongated necks, legs, and arms,

these two models represent the stigma surrounding height in the modeling industry. For so long models have been told that the minimum height requirement to be a successful model was 5’8”. I wanted to get across a sense of both absurdity and humor in this collage by depicting the models as these enormous ‘monsters’ towering over an entire city. The reality is that the average height of women in America is 5’4” and with most women in the model industry being over 6’, a sense of monstrosity in these models over the average woman is undeniable. These models in the fashion

Ana Hickmann

6’1”

industry represent a small percentage of real-life women, yet shorter women are forced to feel inferior to these unrealistic women.

Average Height of American Women: 5’4”

6’2”

Karlie Kloss

Average Height of American Models: 5’10”

#TheseAbsurdExpectations

WEIGHT Weight has always been one of the most prominent issues in the fashion industry. Even from a young age, the glorification of being thin has been forced into the brains of the most impressionable adolescents from media, advertisements, and especially the fashion industry. The fashion industry has had the most impact on equating being thin with being beautiful. There are stories from models in every country of the world being told that they are too big or their hips are too wide, or that their waist is not small enough. I really wanted to get across a sense of this outline or figure that the modeling industry has implemented as a standard for women juxtaposed on top of a photo of a model with larger thighs, hands, and arms who is bigger than the figure in the outline.

Average Weight of an American Model: 107 lbs

The model represents the average woman in America, who is not super thin, trying to fit into this standard of beautiful, but not quite fitting.

Average Weight of an American Woman: 166 lbs

#TheseAbsurdExpectations

AGE There are few models in the fashion industry

who are old. Youth is another quality that has also been equated with beauty for so long. In this collage, I wanted to express both the fact that models are and start out very young, and how the fashion industry impacts its younger readers by over laying the faces of younger girls on top of models. I also chose to overlay lips on top of the younger girls faces to emphasize the extent that girls will go to look more â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;beautifulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, as getting overly injected lips has become increasingly more common to the younger demographic. This in turn reflects the extent that girls and women will go to the feel like they match the

Average Age of American Models: 15-16 years old

beauty of the models in the fashion industry, as well as emphasize how quickly young girls are influenced by this industry to grow up.

Average Age of American Women: 37.7 years old

#TheseAbsurdExpectations

W E A LT H These collages act as a set, portraying the exclusivity of wealth in society that has been created by fashion magazines. Being wealthy is a luxury, something only 4% of Americans consider themselves to be. However fashion magazines are flooded with jewelry, makeup, and clothes that only 4% of the population can afford, leaving the other 96% living their lives feeling inferior because of their inability to buy these materialistic items. I chose to portray these

Average Income of American Households: $48,000 per year

women in the collages as being covered in receipts, as well as the image of a dollar bill in the background, to show the power that money has over people, emphasizing the true extent that wealth has over society.

Cost of Bvlgari Earrings: $4,200

#TheseAbsurdExpectations

EMOTION While flipping through fashion magazines, it is very rare to see images of women and men expressing emotion. For the most part, models are constricted to expressing little to no emotion, leaving the emphasis on the item they are modeling. This consistent lack of emotion indirectly affects society, causing its’ members to feel their own emotions unrepresented in media, and therefore disrupts the way people view and accept their own emotions. In this collage, I wanted to show and exaggerate the lack of emotion in these models. I think that the models in this collage come off as extremely mean and intimidating and by having multiple copies of their faces further emphasizes their lack of emotion by making their faces unavoidable.

“Runway models actually are told not to smile, to look serious, severe and aggressive. Strut strong, they are told. Wear these clothes with the confidence that people will buy what you are wearing no matter how expensive, or strange or well, downright unattractive they are.” -Vivian Diller, Ph.D.

#TheseAbsurdExpectations

The Truth About the Dark Side of the Modeling Industry At age 15, Anyelika Perez traveled abroad to pursue her dream of becoming a model. Now, she tells Women in the World what drove her out of the industry after 14 years, and why she considers herself one of the lucky ones. BY ZAINAB SALBI

ashion models are presented to the world as the perfect images of beauty and glamor, the very standard to which every woman should aspire. What is far lesser known is the dark world that underlies that portrait of seeming perfection. Behind the scenes, the modeling world is crawling with sexual, financial and emotional abuse, the type that can permanently alter a person’s life for the worst. One model has decided to break her silence and speak out about her experiences in an exclusive interview with Women in the World. Anyelika Perez’s life dream was to become a model and when she was 15 years old, she was able to pursue her dream. The daughter of a Venezuelan fashion designer, Perez was able to find an agent who promised her glory and money. “You will travel the world and you can make a living out there — good money to help your mom and your family,” she remembers him having told her. When the offer came to go to France and work with a modeling agency there, she took it in a heartbeat. Perez was just 15 when she journeyed to Paris to embark on her new life. It was a dream come true. Upon her arrival, though, she learned that she would be forced to sleep on a floor mattress with two other girls from Russia. One was a drug addict and the other was bulimic; in addition to her eating disorder, the budding model would hug her teddy bear and cry every night. It did not take much for Perez to realize that her dream of a glamorous life was not as glamorous as the fashion magazines made it seem to be. She started her modeling career by incurring a debt to the modeling agency that many aspiring models commonly take on. In her case, it was 3,000 Euros for her 18

travel costs, room and board and 75 Euros a week for her food and transportation. The modeling agency charged her up front and when she landed her first job, the agency began deducting their fees from her paycheck. Her agent also took a slice for his commission. That is part of the business plan for many modeling agencies — they often keep the young models in an everlasting debt cycle as they place them in one job to the other. To deal with the pressure of losing weight, as instructed by the modeling agency once it was discovered that she was a size four, Perez began heavily smoking and drinking coffee. She limited her food intake to one can of tuna each day. “The only day I ended up eating seriously was at the model’s night on Fridays or Saturdays of every week,” she explains. Those were the nights when all the models are often invited to sit at the table of a businessman or the restaurant owner who wants to be seen with beautiful models in public. He pays for dinner and all the drinks they want in exchange for showing up with him as arranged by the agency — and those soirées are their main chance to eat good food. “In my country, I couldn’t drink or go in a club because I was under 18. But in Paris it was not an issue. We were offered wine and went to clubs without being asked for ID. Sometimes when the parties are in the apartments of the host, they offered us cocaine, weed and all the alcohol in the world,” Perez says. Often at these parties, men would touch, grab, and try all manner of come-ons in attempts to have sex with the models — most of whom were mere teenagers, like Perez. At one of the parties, Perez recalls, a friend of the agency’s owner was aggressively hitting on Perez. “He started touching my butt. Trying to be cute. He asked me to kiss another girl. He pushed and pushed. I had not been intimate with anybody by then. I had only kissed a boy in Venezuela once in my life,” Perez explains. “I

was very uncomfortable from the pressure I was getting from the men that I ended going to the bathroom and locking myself there. He followed me knocking on the door and cursing at me in French to open. I stayed in the bathroom for an hour until everyone left the party and [then] I came out of the bathroom.” Perez continues, opening up about the hardships of trying to adjust to life as a model as well as living in a foreign country at such a tender age. “It was hard for me. I missed my sister and my mom. I cried a lot. I hated to sleep on a floor mattress and I kept on telling my manager in Venezuela that it is a dark, dark world,” Perez says. “I stayed, though, with his encouragement. He would tell me, ‘If you can see beyond that, you can make it and make a lot of money.’” Perez acknowledges she was one of the lucky ones compared to the girls from Russia or Brazil who came from very poor

Anyelika perez seen here in 2007, when she was a contender for the Miss Venezuela title, resting on a cooler after rehearsal on the even of the contest in caracas. (Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images)

backgrounds and endured abuse in silence as they desperately needed the money success in the business promised. Though her background was humble, Perez grew up with traditional Venezuelan values and a family she knew she could always go back to anytime she wanted. The same couldn’t be said for many of the other girls trying to become successful models. By the time she was to celebrate her 16 birthday, Perez had been featured on the cover of many magazines, from Mademoiselle to Ocean Drive, in a host of countries, from Paris to Thailand. Throughout her travels, no agency was ever able to protect her when she complained about sexual harassment and aggressive propositions from photographers or others she encountered by way of the agency. “One agency told

me to go out with the guy who I was complaining about because there is nothing they can do to protect me,” Perez recalls. Perez had to face the reality of plastic surgery as she was selected to participate

woman out and instruct his team on which procedures he deemed each should have, all of which would be performed by the exact same surgeon. In Perez’ case, the owner wanted her to undergo a nose job, an ear job, and a breast enlargement. Perez says other girls were told they must submit to a range of augmentations, including chin surgery and liposuction — all which were performed by the same plastic surgeon, as instructed by the owner. Perez was also instructed to take a cycle of steroids to help control water weight so her body looked more defined. “The steroid effects your mood, your voice, your menstruation,” Perez explains. She was only 19 years old at that point, and was able to get away with only receiving breast enlargements. By the time Perez managed to make

“The owner would check each woman out and instruct his team on which procedures he deemed each should have.” in the Miss Venezuela beauty pageant in 2007 — one of the most well-known beauty pageants in the world up until few years ago. By then, she was heavily anemic to keep her weight down. But she also had to endure an assessment of all the plastic surgery she and other participants in the pageant were told they must undergo, as ordered by the owner. The owner would check each

#TheseAbsurdExpectations

her way to the U.S., at the age of 20, she had noticed some marked changes in her personality and outlook on life. “As a model you become very suspicious of everything. You don’t believe anybody or anything. You become a very cold person. You want to be alone all the time. So many things you see and the things you put yourself to do the job. Clients talk to you like you are a piece of steak. Like an object. One designer told me, ‘You are only a hanger as far as I can see.’” Perez continues, adding, “I have seen guys put things in models’ drink and I see the girls going from super fine to drowsy to the guy taking her with him.” Sometimes she stood up for other models and tried to protect them if she felt they are drugged and vulnerable and sometimes, “I have seen girls that have to do what you have to do. They would sleep with people for a promise of a photo shoot, some even for money. For all those reasons [that]

you see all these years, you become very bitter.” Life was not easier in America. Modeling agencies work on the same business model of debt for fronting costs for each model. Models who are in the U.S. without a legal visa are that much more vulnerable to enduring harassment and abuse for fear of losing their jobs and being deported if they complain. Some modeling agencies do sponsor the models for a legal visa at cost of $4,000 dollars, piling on to the mountain of debt she will accumulate on her journey to becoming a model. The tipping point for Perez was when she was offered a summer job (usually a low season for models) to hang out on the boat of a wealthy man for $15,000 a month. Though sex is not included, the agency cannot protect her from any sexual advances as the boat trips often go to international waters and European countries. “If the guy

“It took me a long time to realize that I am not the toy of the agency.”

asks for sex, it is then up to you,” Perez explains. “You can do whatever you want,” the broker at the agency advised her. Perez refused the offer and eventually she decided to get out of the world of modeling altogether. “I started saying no to a lot of things. If I didn’t get paid well. If the business was shady. One time I walked out of the set when the artist wanted to throw rum on top of the girls and touch us.” During that time, Perez started doing yoga, going back to school to study art direction, fell in love and started spending more time with the man she married and her young family. “There is a lot of dark stuff in this modeling business but there is 20 percent of the people in it who are good and just professionals who want to do a good job without wanting to sleep with you,” Perez explains. After 14 years of modeling, Perez is speaking out about what girls go through as they project images of beauty to the world. “I want to tell the models you are not alone. You should not do things that will harm your soul and your persona to get somewhere. There are other ways. It may take you longer. But you can say no. Even if you came from a hard home environment, you can change that.” At 29, Perez is trying to document her experience through filmmaking to send a message to all the girls who aspire to be models. “As a woman you are stronger than the world makes you think. The world makes you think that you are at the mercy of someone else. It took me a long time to realize that I am not the toy of the agency. They have to treat me right if they want me to do the job correctly. The agency needs to protect us in being treated well, not take advantage of us because we are young and we need the visa.” If we are to take advantage of this historical moment in which women are speaking out about the sexual harassment many have been suffering in Hollywood, politics and media, it is time to look at the fashion and modeling world that constantly feeds the world with projected images of beauty, and covers up the abuse of young women who are often too afraid to speak out. May Perez be the first to break the silence in the fashion and modeling world for their abusive practices.

#TheseAbsurdExpectations

Help spread awareness for these societal expectations to break the cycle by using #TheseAbsurdExpectations on your posts.