There’s a certain kind of fatigue that sets in after seasons of fashion weeks, a weariness that seeps into your bones alongside the jet lag and the endless parade of air-kisses. It’s not just the clothes, though God knows there’s only so many times one can feign excitement over a slightly re-imagined trench coat. No, it’s the language that really gets to you. The relentless churn of buzzwords and catchphrases, all designed to elevate the utterly ordinary to the realm of the extraordinary.
Lately, the phrase that’s been echoing in my ears, bouncing off the champagne flutes and the air-thin pronouncements of PR mavens, is “authentic beauty.” It’s everywhere, clinging to the industry like a particularly tenacious perfume. From the runways of Paris to the Instagram feeds of influencers, everyone’s suddenly an evangelist for this nebulous concept.
But here’s the thing about “authentic beauty,” the dirty little secret whispered in the darkened corners of backstage: it’s often anything but. More often than not, it’s a carefully constructed illusion, a marketing ploy designed to sell us something we didn’t know we needed.
Take, for instance, the recent trend of “real people” in fashion campaigns. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the move towards inclusivity. Seeing a wider range of bodies, ages, and ethnicities represented is long overdue. But let’s not kid ourselves. These “real people,” while undeniably beautiful in their own right, are still meticulously chosen, styled, and photographed to fit a certain aesthetic. The lighting is still perfect, the angles carefully considered, the imperfections artfully airbrushed into oblivion.
And then there’s the language used to describe these campaigns. Words like “raw,” “unfiltered,” and “real” are thrown around with abandon, as if a few carefully chosen adjectives could somehow erase the inherent artifice of the fashion industry. It’s enough to make one long for the days when a model was a model, and a campaign was just a campaign, without the need for all the existential hand-wringing.
The irony, of course, is that true beauty often lies in the unexpected. In the wrinkles etched around a grandmother’s eyes, the gap-toothed grin of a child, the unselfconscious swagger of a teenager navigating the minefield of adolescence. It’s in the moments of unvarnished, unfiltered life, not in the perfectly curated images that flood our screens.
I remember once, years ago, I was backstage at a show in Milan. It was one of those legendary spectacles, the kind that fashion editors still whisper about in hushed tones. The clothes were exquisite, the models otherworldly, the air thick with anticipation. And then, just moments before the show was about to begin, there was a power cut. The lights went out, plunging the backstage area into darkness.
For a moment, there was complete silence. Then, a ripple of nervous laughter. Someone lit a cigarette, the orange glow illuminating the faces around them. And in that brief, flickering light, I saw something extraordinary. Stripped bare of the artifice, the makeup and the carefully constructed personas, the models were just young women, sharing a moment of unexpected intimacy. They laughed, they gossiped, they complained about their aching feet. They were, dare I say it, real.
The lights flickered back on a few minutes later, and the show went on. But that brief glimpse into the unguarded humanity behind the façade has stayed with me ever since. It was a reminder that true beauty is often found in the most unexpected places, in the moments of vulnerability and imperfection that we try so hard to conceal.
So the next time you see a campaign touting “authentic beauty,” take it with a grain of salt. Look beyond the carefully constructed images and the marketing jargon. Ask yourself, what are they really selling? And more importantly, what are they trying to hide?
Because true beauty, the kind that resonates deep within our souls, can’t be manufactured or manipulated. It exists in the messy, imperfect reality of our everyday lives. It’s time we started celebrating that, instead of chasing after some unattainable ideal.
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