By Kirsten Humphreys
@kirstenhumphreys
Within the Fashion Industry there are idealisms projected on models from mass media especially surrounding their appearance. Too often the word perfect is used, and too often it’s not used in a positive way. Perfection does NOT exist – beauty does, and here’s why:
Dictionary Definitions:
Perfect adj: having all the essential elements; faultless; correct, precise; utter or absolute; excellent > n(Grammar) perfect tense > v improve; make fully correct Perfection n- state of being perfect
Beauty n pl-ties- combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delight the senses and mind; (informal) outstanding of its kind.
Life can be a complete mind fuck. We lose our sense of selves, only to find it, then lose it again. We are in a constant state of unknown, and it fucks with our sense of being.
What do I want to achieve? Who do I want to be? Am I a girl still learning and discovering or should I be a woman who has already learnt and discovered. Society is demanding and consuming. Society sometimes makes me want to scream. I would love no more, than to right upper cut the fuck out of society. With all its ideologies and perceptions of the way to live, a very close friend of mine- a model and activist- found herself escaping to her own world. The world of perfection.
When this model (whose name will be kept anonymous) was a teenager, the idealism of perfection consumed her life in such a destructive way, she developed, what I like to call, a phantom in her own mind. This phantom tormented her daily, it ridiculed her until she was despondent, extremely sick and estranged from her once animated and effervescent life. For years it would whisper, at most times scream, in her ear that she had to look a certain way. It’s grasp on her was so firm, that she slowly lost her real persona, morphing into her phantom. Wanting to be perfect was a destructive, ticking time bomb in her conscious and subconscious thoughts. She sacrificed her life, all for the sake of perfection.
PERFECTION IS NOT REAL. NO ONE IS PERFECT.
For someone to be perfect, they would, as the dictionary definition states, have all the essential elements. What are the essential elements you may ask? The answer: we cannot categorise something or someone as being perfect because there is no list. The elements simply do not exist.
Society however, chooses to force feed us ideals of what perfection should look like. It took four years in total for this model to realise this declaration is true. One hundred and ten percent true. It was the toughest four years of her life. Ultimately, it was my once animated friend who came back from the depths of the ever-expansive, abyss of her mind, to kill the perfection wanting phantom.
Today, she’s able to look at things in a new perspective, having gained knowledge and acceptance. Beauty is real. Beauty triumphs perfection. It is the world, the universe and humanity. Love being a woman and love being yourself. Embrace your rawness, confidence, and quirks, because these are beauty.
What people describe as being beautiful, is their own unique perception on the world. Therefore, beauty can be anything. Whatever you think is beautiful is individually your own. Like the dictionary definition states, beauty is a combination of all the qualities that delight the senses and mind- everyone thinks differently, therefore anything is beautiful.
If you ever find yourself wanting to use the word perfect to describe something or someone, please choke the word before it enters the atmosphere. You may think you’re only doing a small deed but it has a massive effect on our society. Everyone is unique and beautiful in their own right – we are individuals. Realistically, if we all wanted to be perfect how boring and mundane would life be? Beauty is a reality and it makes us who we are- humans, raw and real.
