If you’ve been following our interviews with the gorgeous, curvy - and funny plus size model Erika Elfwencrona then take a look at the final 2 interviews in the series.
Erika gives us her thoughts on why you don’t have to be skinny to be beautiful - and shares her most embarassing modelling moment!
You may have heard about Gok Wan’s fabulous crusade to get body confidence lessons onto the National Curriculum in PSHE lessons. (That’s Personal, Social and Health Education.) Following an unsuccessful attempt to arrange a meeting with education secretary Ed Balls, his quest continued recently when he arrived at Downing Street with a petition containing 45,000 signatures in favour of his proposal.
Accompanied by his fabulous body confidence ambassador Shona, winner of Gok’s Miss Naked Beauty contest, Gok explained that it’s our responsibility to help look after the next generation:
“When I first started filming How to Look Good Naked I had no idea of the body hatred epidemic.”
“Over 70 per cent of teenagers have admitted they have little or no body confidence at all.”The average woman in this country is exposed to over 3,000 images of perfection every week, of air-brushing and re-touching and our teenagers are aspiring to look like these people.
“After five years filming the show I feel confident that a difference can be made. We need to teach the next generation that what we see in the media is not a fair representation of the real body.
I think it’s a brilliant idea. The media is affecting people younger and younger these days so it’s important to speak to young people in their ‘formative’ years to help them grow up happy and confident. Good luck Gok and Shona from everyone at Simply Yours!
Sources here and here.
Gok Wan gets studious!
As promised…
Do you think as a society we are becoming more accepting of different female body shapes?
I think the move is starting. I think the revolution has started but we still have a long way to go. I think with the programmes like ‘How to Look Good Naked’ and with campaigns like Dove and Special K, seeing real bodies is now an everyday thing and I think our mindset has shifted but we have got a long way to go.
Do you feel like you have helped make a difference?
I hope so. I get told every day about 700 times I have made a difference and I do hope so. I do believe in what we do. I think the ethos is great and I wouldn’t say I was an activist but I definitely am all about empowerment.
So do you think we will ever see a complete turnaround from the magazines where every inch of a woman’s body is scrutinised and criticised?
I hope so. In my lifetime I think it will happen - I have worked hard enough at it! I think people are now willing to support the cause. It was very, very new a few years ago. Now it isn’t, now it’s very ordinary. People talk it about now and I think if we can make a difference at the younger ages now, at the schools, I think we will see a knock on effect in maybe 20 years time.
I have come across a wave of bad press recently towards larger sized celebrities. When Beth Ditto first came on the scene everything was very positive about her but there now seem to be some people are saying that she is a bad role model for people and that we shouldn’t be praising or idolising celebrities that are a bit bigger.
I don’t er, er what f***ing s*** basically! OK all I can say is look at her peers. Compare Amy Winehouse, who I absolutely love, to Beth Ditto. Because Beth is bigger it doesn’t make her a worse role model. It’s just a ridiculous notion. At the end of the day, young people aspire to be people because of a million different reasons not just because of what they look like. If anything Beth Ditto is inspiring kids because she can turn round and say I am a big girl I may be overweight but she is clearly healthier than most of us and fitter because she gets on stage and f***ing dances a lot! I am seeing her tonight actually. She does of all that, but you know she is also out there of being proud of who she is as well. You know the cover of Love Magazine was absolutely phenomenal, and she pushes the fact that she is a real person with a real body and with an exceptional talent and she realises she doesn’t have to fit into the role to be recognised for her craft. I think she’s brilliant.
I think what they are suggesting is that bigger celebs are actually encouraging people to become bigger.
But you know what, the biggest criticism I get is that I encourage big women to eat more which is complete s***. If I was walking around with a big bowl of dunkin’ doughnuts I could understand that. I am telling people to look in the mirror, and it does, it really makes me angry.
It’s a small-minded mentality. People still don’t understand the concept that people might like themselves. You should like yourself for yourself not because a man’s magazine or because a man out there, you know, some big fat overweight guy in a big office wearing a horrible cheap grey suit is turning round and telling women what they should look like. I mean it is ridiculous. Women should feel, at this day and age, 2009, that they should be equal at work, equal in the home place and also equal when it comes to body issues as well and they shouldn’t have to be forced in a certain way.
Well said Gok!
Gok Wan’s new show has definitely been causing mixed reactions throughout the media. Whist I personally am getting somewhat addicted to Miss Naked Beauty some people are less than impressed and have been saying it is humiliating to the women taking part.
The way I see it, the women are being made to face up to their fears, which is never going to be easy. And Gok is doing it the best way he knows how - using the outrageous, straight to the point tactics he is known for. Which, let’s face it, get results! I for one am fed up with women hating their bodies and am glad Gok is trying to do something about it. Gok always asks them, right before hand if they are ok to do a specific challenge and they are free to say no. No-one said that How to Look Good Naked was humiliating and that used the same ‘cruel to be kind’ technique - because we saw how much happier with themselves the people on it were afterwards and how it changed their lives.
Now some of the contestants in Miss Naked Beauty clearly still have a lot of hang-ups. If they find some of the challenges hard it’s because of the negativity about themselves they’ve been ingrained with by society - the negativity Gok is trying to get rid of. And as an end result they not only stand to feel happier about themselves but also to help change the lives of other women by trying to liberate them from those negative feelings too. So the hang ups have got to go!
Saying that it’s humiliating to be seen without make-up or to show a part of your body is like admitting that there is something to be ashamed of in that un-made-up face or about that body part. And Gok is saying that there is nothing to be ashamed of - in fact, it’s something to be proud of.
But there I go, ranting on again! Let’s hear it from the man himself Gok Wan, as he defends Miss Naked Beauty:
So… Miss Naked Beauty then!
Last night after getting in from the gym then eating a large bowl of spaghetti, it was finally time for the Gok Wan show everyone is talking about. I watched Miss Naked Beauty with some trepidation at first, as admittedly I had had my doubts about it and didn’t want Gok Wan to let me down. But I am most relieved to say - he didn’t.
One of the main reasons I was pleasantly surprised at Miss Naked Beauty was because the girls who auditioned were only told they were trying out for an ‘alternative’ beauty contest - not one that involved feeling beautiful in their natural state.
It was wonderful to see so many confident women of all shapes and sizes standing up on the stage proclaiming why they were happy with themselves, regardless of the myriad ways in which they differed from ‘mainstream’ ideals of beauty. They had grown to accept and love themselves as they were - which is the only way you can ever really be beautiful. Of course, as you might expect from women who entered themselves into a beauty contest, there were also plenty of women who wouldn’t look out of place in any conventional beauty show, who didn’t really have a whole lot ot come to terms with.
After this fabulous show of confidence and inspiring words I was quite amazed at how some of them broke down when they had to remove every scrap of make-up. It seemed that for some their confidence was washed away with the foundation, mascara and lippy. Two women shown could hardly bear to look at themselves in that state - truly a sorry state of affairs for women who have just been marching down Blackpool pier in their bikinis, spouting about self-confidence.
Miss Naked Beauty contestant Lucinda, after the make-up comes off
Lucinda with and without the make-up
And this is why I think the show is great. These women who clearly have confidence issues they never knew they had are going to have to get used to their natural sides and learn to love them. Even if the show doesn’t inspire other women to follow suit (though I believe it will) it’s already been a good thing for these women.
The show’s not perfect. I would have liked to see a few more plus size girls in the final 12 (I don’t think any of them are bigger than a 14). Doing a quick skim of the forums this morning a few people seem irked that the finalists are too conventionally beautiful. I however think they just look… well… normal. The kind of women you see walking down the street every day, which I think is what the show is aiming for. They want contestants women can identity with. They could have tried to challenge people conceptions of ‘beauty’ further, definitely, but it’s a big step in the right direction. And, after all the show is still called Miss Naked Beauty and they have always said that looks will play a (small) part - though perhaps a slightly bigger part for Loaded founder and judge James Brown!
A few blogs and forums have said that it might have helped if co-host Myleene didn’t look quite so meticulously made-up when consoling the blubbing newly make-up free contestants. Admittedly I did shout ‘well take your make-up off then!’ at the TV screen at this point (waking my other half from his snooze on the sofa) but perhaps after she spent however many weeks au naturel in the jungle this is a bit harsh.
I also don’t think all those ‘blink and you don’t quite miss them’ graphic naked boob shots were strictly necessary, (I hope I haven’t just encouraged a bucket load more spam with that line) but I’ll put that down to Channel 4’s ‘creative’ editing. Mind you Gok does love his bangers!
Next week’s episode looks to be a corker. The taster of what’s to come showed the amazonian gothic goddess Dawn yelling down a megaphone to other women in the middle of a busy high street so I’m pretty intrigued to find out what that’s all about. Defintley not the image of a demure beauty queen!
All in all, I was pleasantly surprised when it came to Miss Naked Beauty. If you had asked me whether I thought women really need any kind of ‘beauty ambassador’ I’d be inclined to say no. But if it’s a tough, intelligent, confident woman bursting with personality who’s out to inspire women to accept themselves and be happy the way they are, in today’s climate - then yeah actually, I think that’s a pretty good thing.
Images from here.
In a recent Gok Wan interview (read on to the end), it was questioned whether Gok Wan having his own range of control underwear contradicted what he stood for. The argument was that Gok is all about looking good naked and embracing your natural body – being proud of curves. So they queried how Gok Wan launching his own range of corsets and tummy tuck knickers fits in with this and suggested that it was not a very pro-feminist approach.
I can see where they are coming from with this question. The corset has indeed been an oppressive item of clothing for women to wear throughout much of history (read my article Curves and Corsetry on it here). And indeed, in an ideal world, women should not need control underwear to make them feel good about themselves.
In an ideal world women would also not need make-up, false nails, high-heeled shoes, fashionable clothes, expensive hair-cuts… (the list goes on) to feel good about themselves either.
In an ideal world Gok’s services would not be required at all. There would be no market for a man whose career is based around making women feel good about themselves because women would already feel good about themselves.
But that’s just the thing; this is not exactly an ideal world.
It’s a world where women are put under unbelievable pressure every day to conform to an unattainable beauty and body ideal. And where so many women are made to feel miserable when they do not measure up.
Unfortunately, we are a long way from a society where women are no longer expected to ‘measure up’. And in the meantime women suffer with dangerous diets and go under the knife to have parts of their body made bigger or smaller in order to feel better about themselves.
In a world like this, where happiness for a lot of women remains inextricably linked to their body confidence, Gok is offering all women an easy way to feel good, with lingerie that is beautifully comfortable to wear and makes them feel confident too. Every woman should love and feel proud of her body. Every woman has the right to feel sexy! And this underwear is here to help, to give every woman those fab feelings they deserve to experience.
If anybody is on women’s side in this crazy airbrushing, body-obsessed world, Gok Wan is. If he had the time to help every woman feel proud of her own body the way it is I’m sure he would.
Sadly he can’t. But the Gok Wan underwear is the next best thing.
