Loving Your Body: Before You Work with a Stylist
From the other end of the phone, I could hear her trepidation about coming clean with her truth. She had “body issues”. Those were her words, not mine. To be fair, most women (and guys too) wish there was something(s) they could change about their body; there is a lot of body envy out there. As someone who has studied health behavior, I believe it’s a very human reaction to compare one’s body to other’s bodies. We are all aware of how media depicts the “perfect” woman and man body type. While very few of us fit that ideal image, we continue to compare ourselves.
This potential new client admitting to having body issues wasn’t anything new to me. But she disclosed that she “will never be happy with her body….that’s just the way it is.” That statement hung heavy in the air. That was new to me. I started to think how this belief likely shaped her self-esteem, sense of value and self-worth. How else did it affect her? Sadly, I don’t think this is truly unusual, but she was willing to say it and that was different.
Hearing from a potential client, “I will never be happy with my body” was telling me, ‘Regardless of how you help me, I will never be happy with how I look.’ As a stylist this feels defeating. As a human this makes me feel sad.
When I first begin to work with new clients, I tell them that styling is a process that requires patience and the need for clients to extend grace to themselves. While we want to change our clothes to look different or downplay “problem” parts of our body, we need to appreciate and love ourselves and our bodies. Clothes can only take a person so far in how they feel about themselves.
I know for many people talking about body acceptance triggers differing feelings and perspectives. There is a growing movement that describes being neutral about your body. Body neutrality is the idea that the body isn’t good nor bad, rather, it is there to serve us with an emphasis on how we feel (health and strong) in our body. Body positivity is different. Body positivity focuses on the importance for us to love our body because all bodies are beautiful regardless of size and shape.
Body neutrality challenges our human tendencies to compare ones body to other people’s bodies. Body positivity is an appreciation and love that seems more in line with human behavior. However, aspects of both body neutrality are in alignment with how I work as a stylist. I believe it is important to do things that make us feel healthy and strong creating self love and a positive image,
I believe that clothes are a powerful tool for feeling good and loving how you look. It’s one of the reasons I became a stylist. The right style can help people look so different; truly transformational. I love it when clients see this difference and are literally beaming!
We can use clothes to help us to accept things we don’t like and reframe how we look at ourselves. Most people look at styling from this perspective. That said, we simply cannot assume putting on new clothes will give us the self-love, grace, and acceptance that is healthy.