Cool article in the NYTimes Style section this week about a new model-athlete: South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius.Pistorius is being featured as a sort of cyborg-super hero in a new ad campaign for a fragrance by Thierry Mugler (yeah, idk anything about the 'fragrance' industry either). But the thing that is supposed to grab our attention: he is a double amputee who runs on blade-like prosthetics. Not your typical hunk.
While debate continues about whether paralympians and amputees have become a bit of "thing" in the fashion world of late, and whether this is exploitative, I appreciate this article drawing attention to Pistorius because for once, we are not exclusively focusing on women as we discuss fashion/advertising and body image.
Women definitely face extreme and rigid standards that are supposed to determine the value and success of our body, especially in the fashion/modeling world. But this article actually acknowledges there are pretty ridiculous standards out there for men too, and that striving to meet them can be pretty unhealthy. And men should be allowed to acknowledge this and transparently work to change this. It is really cool to see someone taking the issue of body conformity to other genders, even if it is an ad company. Everyone benefits when we reexamine all the strict rules we impose on ourselves, and that reduce anyone's worth to fitting into a certain "image."
Pistorius leaves us with this to chew on: "[The ad's superhero image] talks about not conforming to what are believed to be the limits of others, but striving to make the limits of your own."
We often forget that the limitations others construct for us--- usually based on silly things like weight, gender, race--- don't have to be our limitations. And this message is just as powerful whether coming from a man or a woman.
Although, what all this has to do with a perfume/cologne . . . . ?
you can smell FAST. awesome. I want perfume that says just that.
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool! And Ania, you should buy it :-P
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