An Antiquated Fashion Ideal Promotes Cosmetic Procedures
Towards the end of August, Vanessa Friedman wrote a piece on Linda Evangelista and the Fantasies Fashion Sells, where she critiques how British Vogue should’ve embraced Evangelista’s physical issues after her CoolSculpting procedures left her face disfigured, but instead they airbrushed her using the illusion of makeup and with postproduction. Friedman points out how the issue would’ve been more powerful if they showcased and embraced Evangelista’s imperfections.
“Should fashion still be serving up this filtered version of dreams, one forged in the decades when the industry itself was run by a group of gatekeepers who were largely white and privileged, in an era shaped by the male gaze? Or are we at a crossroads, where the opportunity is in celebrating the uniqueness of the individual, in all their imperfect, idiosyncratic glory?,” Friedman wrote in her New York Times article.
In an age where we are constantly presenting filtered versions of ourselves on social media it could be hard not wanting to obtain cosmetic procedures to reach this peak of “perfection”. This is how Evangelista felt. “Those CoolSculpting commercials were on all the time, on CNN, on MSNBC, over and over, and they would ask, ‘Do you like what you see in the mirror?’ They were speaking to me. It was about stubborn fat in areas that wouldn’t budge. It said no downtime, no surgery and… I drank the magic potion, and I would because I’m a little vain… So I went for it – and it backfired,” Evangelista told British Vogue.
Ironically, British Vogue is perpetuating the problem during Evangelista’s tell all. This article was about a women describing her struggles and insecurities with her aging skin, and instead of uplifting her by showing that age could be apart of the modern fashion fantasy, they double down on fashion’s archaic beauty conventions.
“So why did she? Well, for the same reasons anyone might succumb to a prick of baby Botox or a little light filler, or even the less invasive allure of an Instagram filter: society’s eternal quest to look, if not necessarily younger, then better.” writes Sarah Harris. After giving her the space to open up about her horrible experience with CoolSculpting, they chose to create a photoshoot for the magazine with her skin tapped back to make her appear younger, only exacerbating the problem that looking older in fashion isn’t an ideal.
From the CoolSculpting procedure, a cryolipolysis treatment from Zeltiq Aesthetics, Evangelista developed paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, which is where the fat cells that were targeted increased instead of decreasing, according to Cosmetic Business. She later sued, but both parties chose to dismiss the case. After stepping out of the spotlight for sometime, her last runway appearance was in 2007 for Christian Dior, Evangelista finally made a debut without any face coverings at Fendi x Marc Jacobs.
I’m sure Evangelista is not the only person who has obtained a cosmetic procedure and regretted it, and because of our digital age we are being bombarded with cosmetic procedures through influencers and advertisements. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), “almost 18 million people underwent surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures in the United States in 2018.” Media consumption is influencing this high influx of people undergoing these procedures and we’ve seen this made apparent with other surgeries such as Brazilian butt lifts and lip fillers, which were made popular by the Kardashians.
The takeaway from this is to be mindful about our media consumption and how is can affect our self-esteem because having these procedures should be a serious decision and not influenced by the fashion industries idea of the ideal beauty standards or an influencers retouched Instagram photos. Our imperfections are beautiful and we should embrace them, just as British Vogue should’ve embraced Evangelista’s.