I have a big bum – NOT!
Part Eight of a great new series of guest articles from Sue Carter, image consultant extraordinaire!
Series Title – How Image Consultants CAN work together!
I really, really dislike the media and how it can make us less than satisfied with ourselves. How it targets young girls and makes them feel fat and frumpy. How the ideal of beauty is an orange lollipop. Think I am joking? Look really hard at some of the young women in the papers and you will see a stick-thin body topped with a huge head and it is all bright orange from fake tan. It’s so, well, sad. I much prefer Nigella Lawson with all those curves and creamy skin. I like women to look like women and so do most men.
In the final analysis, my work as an image consultant is about getting women to enjoy and celebrate their bodies. I want them to understand themselves and dress to show off their unique body shape, colouring and personality. I don’t focus on the negatives with them. Rather I help them appreciate themselves and, along the way we might discuss their body shape and how to dress it. We certainly sort through their clothes and find the ones that are just right for them, that fit in the right places and skim where skimming is needed. My ladies know how to make themselves look good.
I wish that I had had me when I was younger
I grew up believing that, like many English women, I was pear shaped. That’s a triangle or A shape for those of you who trained with other systems. Yes, I had big thighs and hips and no bust or waist tospeak of. I even dressed this way for years. There was only one tiny problem and you just know what is coming next, don’t you? All – and I do mean all – the women in my family wear a size bigger on top 
because of their big breasts, have a waist and slim hips with very nice bums. They are all a variation on an hourglass, including me. What must I have looked like?
Well, you can see because I found a photo of me wearing the very worst thing I could for my figure shape and you may laugh as I now know better.
How did I work this out? Actually I didn’t. I needed help from some friends. As we all stood viewing each other’s bums on Kim’s Style course I was informed that I did have a nice curved bum, that it was decidedly perky for someone of my age. People were even jealous of my shape. What a revelation! It marked the end of covering up my bum for ever. I don’t have a big bum. I have a peach of a bum. Hurrah.
Move on a few weeks to when I was preparing to shop with Suzie and she asked me my dress size. I told her quite simply that I was a 22/24. I was greeted with a snort down the phone as she informed me that the t-shirt I had driven home in last time was a size 14 from Primark. I told her it must have stretched in the wash. And as I sit typing this in a size 18 dress from Phase 8 I concede that maybe I was wrong after all. Maybe, like a lot of women, I really don’t see the truth when I look in the mirror and I need another person to see it for me.
Suzie says she finds this is a common thing with her female clients; they all have difficulty understanding and accepting their own size and shape.
This brings me back to the lollipops. What we see in the media can make us and our clients so dissatisfied with our bodies that we don’t see them clearly any more. My cure for this is to collect those photos from the press that show celebs without make up or air brushing and/or visit this site http://www.iwanexstudio.com/ and look at the portfolio. Hover your mouse over a photo to see the befores and afters, great stuff.
I am never going to meet most of you reading this blog but I do have a question and a suggestion for you. Do you really know and understand your own body shape? If you have any doubts then phone a fellow image consultant and let a professional be your friend.
Suzie emailed me
Do you remember the sales consultant (I use that term very loosely) in ****** that when I asked if they stocked any navy trousers, and she replied, "Depends where your bad bits are," and I responded with, "Oh we don’t have bad bits, we just have bodies we love!" She almost fainted!
Sue likes any orange lollipops that she can eat, especially those from Little Chef that you get for eating all your dinner. Suzie prefers chocolate. BUT they both like helping women look amazing no matter what their bums look like. Contact us.
Series Title – How Image Consultants CAN work together!
Part One – Let’s Talk Boobies
Part Two – Suzie and Sue get to know each other
Part Three – Suzie and Sue share four little words
Part Four – Suzie has light colouring
Part Five – What a difference a grey makes! Part 1
Part Six – What a difference a grey makes! Part 2
Part Seven – Bare Minerals Make-up
Part Nine – coming soon
No related posts.