Sex & Beauty

#ThrowbackThursday: Liu Wen Walks the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, 2009

Liu Wen walks the 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show (Zimbio)

I’ll be honest: Sometimes my posts are born from a random thought. This post comes from my Googling to find out who the first Asian supermodel was. This led me to Liu Wen, whom The New York Times called the “first Asian supermodel” in 2012.

Three years before The Grey Lady bestowed that moniker, Liu walked in the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. She was the first Asian model to do so. That’s hardly the only first Liu has racked up throughout her career: She’s also the first East Asian model to be a face for Estee Lauder, cover American Vogue in 2017 and make Forbes‘ annual list of highest-paid models. (Liu ranked #5 on Forbes’ list in 2013 with $4.3M.)

#ThrowbackThursday: Halima Aden’s Burkini, 2016

Halima Aden’s burkini in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant, 2016 (WFDD).jpg

In November 2016, Halima Aden competed in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant. Naturally, the pageant had the typical swimsuit portion. While other contestants strutted out in colorful bikinis, Aden went in a different direction. The Somalian model chose to put her Muslim faith front and center. She wears hijab, and wore a burkini for the swimsuit portion of the event.

Aden is the first woman to compete in hijab and burkini. Though she didn’t take home the title, Aden’s sartorial choice and adherence to her values made headlines.

Trends: #NoPhotoshop

Iskra-Lawrence ‘Share Your Spark’ AerieReal campaign (Glamour)

It used to be that brands only used tall, skinny, (mostly) blonde girl in their advertising. This was thought to be aspirational: You wanted to be the girl in the photo, and how best to be that? Buy their clothes (or perfume, or lingerie, or whatever the brand was selling). But the pursuit of one aspirational body type led those who didn’t possess said body type (either by genetic luck-of-the-draw or by carefully-chosen enhancements) to believe themselves unworthy and maybe inferior.

Thankfully, that trend is on its way out. The current thing (which, I hope, stays) is all about positivity and accepting yourself as you are, because you are enough. For women’s brands, this has translated to, among other things, banning Photoshop.

This month, Glamour released its all-women, no Photoshop issue. The magazine’s staff has gone all-in on banning photo retouching: A quick glance at the “Girls” cast on the cover, and you can see that the cellulite on Lena Dunham’s thigh hasn’t been wiped out. And why should it? It’s just a natural part of life.

In January 2014, American Eagle’s underwear brand Aerie launched its #AerieReal campaign, featuring models of all shapes and sizes and no Photoshopping. The intimates brand is aimed at girls ages 15-22, and the campaign has been used to promote body acceptance, positivity and confidence.

Aerie’s gamble has paid off exponentially: Q2 2014 sales were up 9% from the previous quarter, and continued to grow for the rest of the year. In 2015, sales were up by 20%, with Q4 2015 seeing a 26% increase year-over-year. And sales in Q1 2016 were up 32%.

Body acceptance and positivity has also bled into regular women’s lives, and features prominently on social media. Searching #nophotoshop on Instagram brings up 460K+ posts.It’s clear that this trend isn’t going away anytime soon.

#ThrowbackThursday: #AerieReal, 2014

#AerieReal campaign, 2014 (The Huffington Post)

American Eagle’s underwear brand Aerie launched its Aerie Real campaign in January 2014. The campaign, photographed by John Urbano and targeted to teens and women and in their 20s, did away with traditional models (read: skinny, unblemished) and began using “real” women, unretouched in all their glory.

The Newest CoverGirl Wears a Hijab

CoverGirl Nura Afia (Today)

CoverGirl is making strides in inclusivity in their marketing outreach this year. Earlier, the brand announced beauty blogger James Charles as its first male spokesmodel. Now, CoverGirl has tapped beauty vlogger Nura Afia. Afia wears a hijab as part of her Muslim faith.

The 24-year-old will be the first spokesmodel to wear a hijab. Afia will appear in a commercial, and will serve as an ambassador for the So Lashy! Blast Pro Mascara. She hopes that her wearing hijab will normalize Muslims for the rest of America.

Afia began posting makeup tutorials on YouTube in 2011. She now has 215K subscribers and 13M video views. But this isn’t Afia’s first major brand partnership: she’s previously partnered with Revlon.

Beauty that’s inclusive to Muslims is massive, and poised to grow even bigger. According to Ogilvy Noor, by way of The New York Times:

The Muslim personal cosmetics and care market is now worth more than $54 billion, a figure that is expected to reach $80 billion by 2020.

Beauty Blogger James Charles is CoverGirl’s First Cover Boy

James Charles (Elle)

Cosmetics giant CoverGirl made history this past week with the announcement of their newest spokesmodel. The newest face is 17-year-old beauty blogger James Charles, who’s made history as the first male spokesmodel for CoverGirl. He’ll advertise the brand’s So Lashy mascara, and has already met fellow spokesmodel Katy Perry.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard Charles’ name: He came to our attention earlier this year with a tweet showing off his redone senior portraits, complete with notable highlight and his own ring light.

Charles only began experimenting with makeup last year, and has already amassed 74K+ subscribers to his YouTube channel and 500K followers on Instagram.

Charles’ selection isn’t without precedent, as men have been used in cosmetics advertising before: MAC has used RuPaul and Johnny Weir before.

Ashley Graham is the First Size-14 Model to Cover the “Sports Illustrated” Swimsuit Edition

Ashley Graham, ‘Sports Illustrated’ Swimsuit Edition, 2016 (Mashable)

Big news for “Sports Illustrated:” the famed Swimsuit edition came out this past weekend, and featured three different models on three different covers. One of the covers featured Ashley Graham, who’s now the first size-14 model to cover the Swimsuit Edition (and appear within its pages).

This is a huge leap for Graham: Last year, she appeared in the Swimsuit Edition, but only in an ad.

In addition to Graham, this year’s Swimsuit Edition’s other cover girls are mixed martial artist Ronda Rousey and model Hailey Clauson.

Barbie Gets Three New Body Types

New Barbies (CNBC)

For decades, Barbies have been a constant presence in many girls’ toy boxes. Her body barely changed for over 50 years: tall, thin, big boobs, small waist (for that coveted 7:10 waist-to-hip ratio) and balancing on her tiptoes.

For many years, her physical assets have been a point of contention for feminists and activists for positive body image and acceptance. (I can confirm: I’ve been told my grandmother wouldn’t let my mom play with Barbies when she was growing up on the grounds that the doll was too “buxom.” I mean, she wasn’t exactly wrong.) It seems that their concerns have finally been acknowledged.

Barbie will be sold in three different body types: petite, curvy, and tall. Mattel, the company that’s made the doll since its inception in 1959, is also expanding the line in terms of ethnicity and race options:

Barbie dolls will come in seven skin tones, 22 eye colors, 24 hairstyles, and even a flat foot.

This move comes as consumers seek dolls that resemble themselves, or the little girls in their lives. For many women, Barbie is the first doll they could envision as themselves, and dreaming big. and it’s even better that now more dolls will resemble the consumer base’s diversity. Mattel has already begun diversifying their Barbies: the company broadened the range of “skin tones, eye colors and hair styles” available.

The new Barbies will debut this spring in stages. It’ll be interesting to see how the new dolls impact Mattel’s bottom line: Worldwide sales fell 4% in Q4 2015, and the company’s stock price has dropped 43% since a high in 2013.

Thursday Trends: Young Women and #GrannyHair

Rihanna (Her Interest)

Kylie Jenner did it. So did Rihanna and Kelly Osbourne. Of course, Lady Gaga, trendsetter that she is, rocked it back in 2010.

Grey hair.

Once upon a time, it was unseemly for women to go out sporting anything other than a full mane of brown, black, red or blonde hair. Grey was seen as unnatural and, at the same time, a little too natural. It was shoved to the side, to the back of the mind, ignoring the tell-tale side of aging.

Right now, women are embracing the color whole-heartedly, and running towards the grey instead of away from it. A recent BuzzFeed post shows how young women are riding the trend, especially seen on Instgram with the hashtag #GrannyHair.

But why now? Why is this grey hair’s big moment?

We seem to be in the midst of a “revering our elders” moment. (Real talk, though: that needs to happen every day. Call your grandparents, people!) The fashion world has been pioneering this lately. French fashion house Céline tapped 80-year-old essayist Joan Didion to be their latest model, and Saint Laurent is using 71-year-old Joni Mitchell. The major beauty players are doing the same, with 64-year-old Jessica Lange for Marc Jacobs and 69-year-old Helen Mirren for L’Oreal Paris. In this year’s Milan Fashion Week, trends skewed towards something your grandmother might don for a social event.

This makes total sense in terms of how current demographics are shifting. The baby boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1964, are turning officially “old” at a rapid clip. As of 2011, they numbered 77M+ and are “the largest generation in American history.” Baby boomers began turning 65 in 2011, and won’t stop until the end of 2029.

Here’s how CNN puts this demographic’s strength in numbers in terms of future projected growth:

The 65+ population segment is projected to double to 71.5 million by 2030 and grow to 86.7 million by 2050.

With this projected growth will come a lot of societal changes (I’ve always said that this isn’t a generation that’ll age quietly). We’re beginning to see initial impacts with how we view that generation and the ones before. For example, It used to be that you couldn’t be seen as a sexual being after a certain age, that you were out of the running in the race to make babies. And while that second part might be true, the first has been proven false by many women over “a certain age.” Case in point: see every instance where a late-night talk show host jokes about Helen Mirren. They’re always saying she’s hot (and she is!). Society has long seen older men with grey hair as sexy, and is now (finally!) coming around to the idea that older women are hot too.

Young women coloring their hair grey even has a historical precedent. In her book “Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love” author Betsy Prioleau mentions that young women in the French court used to powder their hair grey to emulate their elders. (If you’ve seen Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” the director subtly includes this detail, noticeable in some shots.)

Overall, this trend really points to a shift in how we’re seeing aging. People seem to be more open to the fact that life doesn’t stop after a certain age. And young women are celebrating their elders with their grey hair, natural or not.

Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang

Statistics. Economics. Sex.