If you’ve been following me for a while, you already know how my art and creativity revolve around womanhood and the incredible power women possess.
So instead of marking it once a year on international women’s day, I’ve decided we should start right now, and every day (not just one day a year…)
In all of my fashion studies, I received a lot of criticism, but there is one thing that I will never forget and that is the criticism I got from my fashion illustration teacher, who always found my fashion figures to be too realistic, masculine, and even round (that was way before the positive body image movement).
But I never surrendered to those remarks and kept my unique “human” fashion figures, I even made it my signature style. There are plenty of fashion illustrators around the world that can provide super skinny figures if needed. leave me to the “wonder woman” drawing style with all her glory, muscles, and fat.
It is known that the ideal feminine body image in human culture has dramatically changed across history and there were times when rounder, plus size women were the symbols of beauty and femininity. On the other hand, if you lived in the nineties you probably also remember the time when skinny/ anorectic women were the height of fashion.
These days when the 80’s and 90’s generation is parenting a new generation of girls, we are in the perfect position to shape the ultimate generation of future women, teaching them today how there is no wrong or right to how you look. Everyone is beautiful, anybody is the perfect body, as long as YOU TRULY LOVE YOURSELF.
Just as Barbie has always been an icon of body image and an ideal of beauty, even her figure has been changed during the decades.
For starters, “Mattel” the company which produces the Barbie dolls has widened the doll’s waistline and bottom. In the past decade, they produced the “You can be anything” line of dolls, including a Barbie astronaut, a barbie chef, a barbie teacher, a barbie scientist, musician, pilot, police officer, doctor, and many more.
today’s body image does not conclude in body sizes but in who you are on the inside!
When I plan my next female figure illustration, I always begin with the eyes first to bring the figure’s soul to the picture. exactly as I raise my own 2 girls.
Body image to me (not just for women, by the way) is the image of your heart and soul first.
Be kind to yourself, wise up, be curious, be healthy, all else fades away with time anyway.
