What a revolting way to treat people
I remember having my style ‘done’ hundreds of years ago and having to change into a leotard in front of one colleague (not even a good friend) and 4 other perfect strangers.
Glory me! What an absolutely hideous experience and I swore there and then I would never do that to MY clients.
At the time, I was a young whippersnapper in my early twenties with a not utterly revolting body but, even so, I was mortified by the experience.
I don’t remember a word of what the image consultant said or her final diagnosis but I DO remember feeling ugly, horrible and exposed.
Gordon Bennett alone knows what or how the other 5 older, larger ladies felt…
They say that you should always treat people as you would like to be treated. Well what about treating them even better than that?
Why didn’t that woman make me feel fantastic, fabulous, gorgeous, like a princess? As it happens, with that particular image consultant, I could sit and explain exactly why but I won’t bore you with her history, my history, or even OUR history here.
Suffice it to say that I learnt a huge lesson that day and if we don’t learn from these experiences and move on, then we may as well stick our heads in a bucket of sand and shuffle off this mortal coil - sometimes only Shakespeare can express my deepest emotions and I apologise profusely for tainting his brilliant words with such a dowdy one as ‘bucket’!
Back to the story…
Why did we have to change into a dratted leotard in the first place?
- So that the so-called expert could pin you against a wall and measure you to within an inch of your life!
And for what reason exactly?
- So that she could then compare your measurements to a drawing of the ‘perfect’ body shape.
Yeah, I can see it all now; it’s as clear as day. We were all plunged into abject misery at the very thought of our own personal measurements and knew without a doubt that we would never measure up to the ‘perfect’ woman even if we stopped eating for three hundred years! So, naturally, we all felt fantastic, fabulous, gorgeous, and just like a princess - NOT!
Good grief and glory! (Believe me, this is a severely watered-down version of what I originally wrote)
What a revolting way to treat people and the stupidity of it all is that there is absolutely no need to do any of this.
I was determined that I would never ask my clients to strip to their undies or measure them or degrade them so I had to search around for other ways of working out whether you’ve got a straight body shape, where your waist is, how long your neck is, whether you’ve got escaping hamsters or bat wings…
I now teach at least 3 different ways of working out what body shape your client is WITHOUT HAVING TO TOUCH HER.
None of this silly measuring nonsense; it’s so unnecessary, so invasive and can feel so humiliating.
The same goes for scale, proportion, whatever you want to call it. I usually brandish a tape measure around just to demonstrate that I will NOT be using it, and you can see everyone visibly relax straight away.
Let’s be real here. There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect’ woman anyway. What is perfect to one person will be imperfect to someone else so let’s stop this holier-than-thou attitude in our industry and treat everyone as an unique individual who is ‘practically perfect’ just as she is - rather like Mary Poppins.
There are plenty of other reasonable ways to distinguish a lady’s scale, shape, etc. without having to grope her and that’s what I now teach on to other ladies who want their own clients to have lots more fun and feel fantastic, fabulous, gorgeous, and just like a princess in their Style classes. I hope yours do too!
