The modelling industry very often promotes standard Western beauty ideals. Super-human height, Grace Kelly’s delicate facial features, and thin, never-ending limbs are not common traits among the average global population.
On a runway, models often blend into each other. All the women stand at around 5’10″ (178cm), the majority are caucasian, and have similarly proportioned bodies. However, the line-up for a runway show is made-up of 20 or more individual women. If successful in high fashion, unique faces on runways and magazine pages become regular presences in the fashion world. A girl whose features may seem unusual at first (Lindsey Wixson, Daphne Groeneveld, etc.), soon become normalized, familiar faces for readers of magazines. Fashion has the power to change our ideas of beauty. And it’s fantastic.
Hanaa Ben Abdesslem is a Tunisian model in her twenties. She has fair skin and a pixie cut, but her features are recognizably North African. Since 2001, North American society has increasingly generated islamophobia and extreme racism toward North African and Middle Eastern individuals.
Good models sell products because they are «perfected» versions of consumers. Perhaps a model has a similar haircut or smile to an individual reader, but they’re perfectly photogenic and flawlessly groomed. Consumers see themselves in models and think, “I could be like her if…” The consumer believes that the difference between themselves and the model is clothing, make-up, etc.; that is how models sell products.
Hanaa demonstrates Arab beauty that’s aspirational to women regardless of their ethnicity. I’m Scottish, Irish, English, and Prussian, but I can relate to her hair and eyes. I’m sold on her beauty. When readers relate to Hanaa, they are acknowledging that an Arab woman can be some one to look up to — even on a superficial level.
This may seem insignificant, but it’s a fantastic step forward in a society where Arab women are portrayed as submissive and backwards and anyone who looks vaguely Middle Eastern is targeted with suspicions of terrorism.
Alek Wek and Liu Wen did this for Sudanese and Chinese women, respectively. And in today’s climate that some days seems hopelessly racist, I’m more than happy to see Hanaa’s face smiling up at me from a Lancôme advertisement.
