Ireland’s Next Top Model

According to the Indo and the Herald, it looks like there’s going to be an Irish version of Tyra Banks’ world famous show, America’s Next Top Model.

 

The first issue with I have with this concept is captured beautifully in the first line of the Herald article:

IRELAND’S top catwalk queens may be in for some stiff competition before the year is out.

This whole idea of searching for Ireland’s NEXT top model is a bit problematic. Whose shoes will they be filling exactly? In America, Tyra Banks – one of the most famous supermodels in the world - is the mentor and judge for the girls. In Germany – the legendary Heidi Klum is the one to whom the aspiring young ladies can look for guidance. Slightly pushing it, Britain have chosen Lisa Snowdon. While hardly ‘top model’ material, she did go out with George Clooney for a very long time, which in fairness, does give her some grounds to tell the rest of us how it’s done. Who have we got lined up for the job? Well, it’s rumoured to be Andrea Roche, former Miss Ireland. So everything that Tyra has been banging on about for the last 10 seasons about the competition being a search for a model and not a beauty pageant queen is out the window then. But hey, I’m sure the big wigs in charge of the project know what they are doing…

…After all, the company set to bring Ireland’s Next Top Model to our screens is none other than Screentime Shinawil, the same people who brought us You’re a Star and Popstars. I mean, it’s not like they’d allow someone who didn’t know what they were talking about be a judge on the show, is it? That would be like putting a failed popstar turned glamour model and Fair City reject in charge of advising and selecting new up and coming popstars… oh wait, eh…. Okay, it’s not like they’d pour loads of time and money into a show and then have the result be a completely misjudged, mismanaged flop, no..they’d never do that..would they?…

I can just imagine what the Irish version of the show would entail:

Challenges involving cow-milking: “As a top model, you have to be ready to get to grips with any scenario and be a professional.“

Photo shoots in the Galtee Mountains or out in the middle of some bog : “Top models often have to brave the elements in the name of high fassshhhion.”

Final judgements in the elimination room in front of an expert panel made up of panto legend herself, Twink, the fella who does the airbrushing for RSVP magazine and whichever member of Boyzone isn’t making a comeback/changing religions/joining the cast of Coronation Street this week. That’ll be the old one then.

Weekly photographs illustrating the true diversity of the hidden talent and beauty Ireland has to offer: from Lancome flash bronzer, to Fake Bake, to St. Tropez, to Clarins – the range of shades and brands of fake tans these beauties will lather on in order to battle the rain streaks knows no bounds.

With everything from blonde bobs, to blone extensions, to platinum bobs, to blonde with brown extensions underneath, to long blonde, to blonde streaks – capturing the truly unusual, dynamic and uncultivated beauty of the average girl walking through the streets of Donnybrook or Drumcondra is what this show is all about.

I can see it now: giving opportunity to those who have really had to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Only previously successful in regional pageants and in doing promotions in lycra for the local radio station, these young buds will finally be able to blossom on national television. And what better channel to showcase the best and brightest and most beautiful girls in Ireland, than TV3, home of Miss Universe Ireland, in its pink bikini-clad glory, and Diary of a Beauty Queen, a sneak preview at the truly insipid nature of some of these fame hungry girls with boobs, legs and little else.

I may sound a just a tad sceptical about the prospect of INTM coming to our screens, and you may think that I am being needlessly unfair. But ask yourself: is Ireland ready for this show? I have to say no. We live in a country where girls aspire to be beautiful by parading in bikinis and wearing tiaras and waving to assembled crowds at pageants. And judging by the winners of such pageants in previous years, it’s pretty clear that the mold of the girl with long legs, big boobs, poker straight hair and fake tan has not been broken.

If we are to believe supermodels are glorified clothes horses, that’s well and good. But you cannot deny that when you see a picture of Kate Moss or Tyra Banks or Helena Christensen in a couture gown, it looks slightly more impressive than Rosanna Davidson or Glenda Gilson in a dress from Brown Thomas. There is no definitive way of looking at beauty, and no way of deciding what is and is not stylish. But Irishness is unmistakable, and the uncanny ability Irish ‘celebrities’ have of taking things from American or British pop culture, such as reality TV, glamour modelling and fashion magazines and turning them into head-in-you-hands-cringefests cannot be denied. Something tells me that INTM is yet another chance for the embarrassing underbelly of the Irish entertainment industry to rear it’s ugly, spray-tanned, ghd-ed, noisy, vacant head.

The Bigger Picture : Alesha – Look But Don’t Touch

In a new BBC Documentary ‘Look but Don’t Touch’, Alesha Dixon, formerly of the girl band Misteeq, has set herself a mission. In an attempt to expose the effect that celebrities, media and airbrushing have on young girls in society, she has set out to find a magazine that would be willing to put a photo of her completely untouched-up on the cover. Over the course of the programme, she also chatted to children from her goddaughter’s playgroup about what they thought was pretty and what they didn’t like about themselves. (One little girl thought size 14 was too big and another didn’t like herself because she was brown.) Alesha also tracked the progress of an 18-year old girl who, having lost a lot of weight, was getting breast implants to get her boobs back, as well as a woman who wanted to get touched-up photos done of herself for her fiancé before their wedding.

As with all of these types of documentaries, there’s not much wrong with the core idea of it : shallowness + negative body image + unhealthy idealism = bad, appreciating real beauty + liking yourself + not buying into celebrities = good.  It is sad to think that in Fiji, within 3 years of first getting television 12 girls out of 100 had Bulimia. Little girls reading Heat or Mizz think they are fat and ugly. This kind of thing does sadden me, but the programme didn’t altogether convince me that Alesha had the answer.

The main reason that I found her thesis dettached from the whole point of helping young girls with crippling self-confidence is that Alesha is not only drop-dead gorgeous, but also went through the entire programme in full glamourous make-up while being treated like a celebrity. Her crusade was against air-brushing, and eventually she did find a magazine willing to display her ‘untouched’ photo on its cover. But she still had a stunning red gown, full make-up and her hair done by a stylist. She also had a professional camera-crew, lighting and a wind machine. And to add to the absolute shame of the tall, stunningly attractive girl having her photo on the magazine, they put her up on a billboard in central London. While it was up there, she asked a few passers by what they thought. Of course, they all barely noticed and thought she was beautiful in it. So, the point is, you see – they barely notice the absence of air-brushing. But all that tells young girls is that, if you are beautiful and rich you don’t need airbrushing. I mean, if every spotty 12 year old who felt low had a couture gown, a team of stylists and a wind machine she would probably feel like a princess, but most days, she just feels like an ugly girl.

Alesha had help during the programme from her good friend, Cheryl Cole. Amid air kisses and gleaming smiles the two dolled up stunners talked about what they don’t like about themselves. Cheryl doesn’t like her legs. Alesha has some scars and big feet. But they said that when magazines point out that they have cellulite, it helps the normal young girls out there. Just like when they see Kate Moss with cellulite, they are reassured. But far from being this reassuring sisterhood of ‘we’re all flawed’ this just reinforces that physical flaws are important. And no girl looks at Kate Moss or Cheryl Cole and thinks that although they have been repeatedly voted the sexiest or most stylish women in the world, the fact that they have stretch marks on their left leg makes me feel like i’m ok. By focusing on the fact that even the most gorgeous celebrities have hang-ups about air-brushing and flaws may make them seem human, but it also sets the bar even higher. Not only now are you feeling less than the goddess women, you aren’t even near the top of the pile of mortals anymore. I realised, it’s not about the air-brushing and the idea of perfection. Even if you remove the inhuman flawless aspect of it, they are still drop-dead gorgeous and people the world-over desire and envy them. They have trainers, make-up, fans, clothes and tiny waists/long legs/nice boobs. A stunning made-up girl without air-brushing is still a beauty on a pedestal for most nprmal people, and I think the programme sort of missed that, well, a lot to be honest

So even though the central idea didn’t really work for me, my friend and I did get chatting about the whole reason why girls get so sucked into the whole culture of wanting to look like celebrities and what it is we aspire to. The 18 year old girl who got the boob job had a lovely family, good job and handsome boyfriend. He couldn’t understand why she wanted to get surgery. She wanted breasts like Posh Spice. She wasn’t doing it for him. She wanted to be ripped open and have silicone stuffed into her chest and be able to look in the mirror and think she was like Posh Spice. But more than that, she wanted strangers to look at her. She wanted people she didn’t know to admire her.

It’s not just in body conscious women we see it. Young girls today are a lot different to what they were in the early 1990s. (the golden days, you might say.) We watched those films where kids snuck off to cummer camp and had bonfires, we wanted to be the only girl on the basketball team, we watched Saved by the Bell and wanted to hang out on the beach and drink milkshakes. We liked the Babysitter’s Club. Today, my little cousin and her friends love Hannah Monatana – a programme about a 12 year old who leads a secret double-life as a pop star. The star of this show, Myley Cyrus, is 15 and has recently done a racy Vanity Fair photoshoot featuring her and a sheet. Another popular favourite is High School Musical. While more innocent, this still has young teenagers dressing ike adults and being adored up on stage. Young girls today want to be older, have pretty clothes and hair, be famous, recognized and perhaps most disturbingly, fancied. The core needs of young girls has always been to be pretty and popular, but gone are the days of wanting to trick the adults, have sleepovers and have play tricks on boys. Now young girls want to skip a decade or so.

It’s all much more sexualised, and in a very public way. The young women aren’t doing things to make themselves feel beautiful or make their partners happy, and the little girls arent trying to stay out late, go to sleepovers and kiss the boy next door. Girls and women are doing things because being recognised and being adored or admired for being beautiful or flawless is a good thing. Unfortunately, Alesha’s quest did not do much to fix this. It simply changed the degree of perfection to which young girls aspire. In a sense, at least when there was air-brushing we could tell ourselves that she can’t be that beautiful, it’s all digital. But on a 10 foot billboard in London we can see that Alesha is just beautiful. So forgive me if I am hesitant to say that a boundary has been broken with this programme. All I saw was a woman who could use her celebrity status to make a TV documentary and who had long legs, lots of make-up, confidence and contacts. All the girls who aspire to be like celebrities but aren’t naturally beautiful aren’t taking fromt his that natural beauty is ok, they are taking from this that to compete with natural beauties such as Alesha and Cheryl they need help. They need fad diets, make-up, fake tan and in extreme cases cosmetic surgery. And so the cycle continues: girls seeing beautiful people on tv, wanting their lifestyles, and making themselves miserable trying in vain to be like that. Touch-ups or not touch-ups, that is not going to change anytime soon.

All the fun of the Lovely Girls competition

Last week was a strange one for me, going by the usual happenings of my life. This was mostly down to the fact that I was participating in the Cork Rose selection 2008. I’d wanted to enter the competition for ages, mostly because I wanted to trick people into believing I could be a ‘lovely girl.’ It was an ongoing joke for a long time between my friends and I that I would have to enter the Cork Rose. Then this year, when there was actually someone willing to sponsor me I thought: Oh I am doing this.

From the moment that I donned the sash and pretty dress at last week’s media launch, I felt my cynicism slowly rush away from me. Every single girl I met was a bag of nervous excitement, friendliness and stories. As much as I always tittered away at the Rose of Tralee on TV in the past, I began to see it in such a new light this past week. I’ve met girls aged between 18 and 26 from Carrigaline to Charleville. I’ve met girls who have wanted so much to put on a pretty dress, stand up on a stage and show people what they could that they went to businesses they had never even heard of to ask for sponsorship so they could enter. I’ve met hairdressers, Irish Dancing teachers, primary school teachers, accountants, bankers, girls just finished their leaving cert, students and this year, even mothers. (For the first time ever the Rose of Tralee is allowing single mothers to enter.) I’ve seen girls sing, read poems ( one was in French), dance reels, do modern Irish dancing with a sweeping brush, play the button accordian and, my personal favourite, demonstrate soccer skills on stage.

People always say that the Rose of Tralee is different from Miss Ireland because it isn’t about being the most beautiful or having the best body in a bikini. It is a festival and celebration of everyday Irish young women. The beauty of it is though, that there is nothing ordinary about them. For one week, a normal girl can feel like a celebrity. For the last week, 38 of us took over the Radisson Hotel in evening gowns and sashes. We had hair and make-up artists, escorts, a dressing suite, a green room and phototgraphers taking our pictures. There were goody bags and pink champagne. Over lunch or while waiting for our hair appointments girls were telling me of people approaching them in their home towns wishing them luck because they had seen their photos in the local paper or of how they woke up that morning to answer the door to a giant bouquet of flowers. It was a week where we all felt like the star of our own show. For 5 minutes on the stage everyone in the room was looking at you and you were keeping their attention simply by being yourself. There was no bikini round where you were kept in by having the best body, it was about more than that. It is a wonderful thing that makes the real girls of the world feel like celebrities, especially when so many celebrities feel the need to play down the brain and up the boob factor so much these days.

Personally, aside from my oh-so-objective assessment of the merits of this competition for young girls, I enjoyed every single minute of being part of it. I enjoyed the pampering, the clothes, the fuss, the sash, the free drinks, and of course, meeting all the other girls. There was also a pretty fantastic cajun chicken bagel in the hotel bar that made everything even more pleasant for me. When it all came down to those 5 minutes on the stage, I actually managed to carry it off. I stood up, I talked, I tried to be lovely, while still being me. (not as easy as you might think) I talked about history and international relations and how I wanted to work in the field of conflict resolution. I talked about my part-time job as a tour guide and the school tours I give of UCC campus. I mentioned my admiration of Vivienne Westwood and her beautiful clothing and how she fuses her interest in politics and culture with her passion for style to design clothes that make a statement. I talked about my clumsiness as a dresser and about the time I walked to the Choral Festival in the City Hall with my dress tucked into my knickers. (token embarrassing incident.) I talked about my love of writing and having a collection of my own memories and expressions in various books and volumes, be they articles, poems, or stories. I also said how I love to run and that running around the Lough is how I clear my head and enjoy time by myself. I read a poem that I wrote when I was 18 which won an award in a national poetry competition and got published in a book of poetry for young people. All in all, I ticked the boxes I could without losing any of what makes me the person I am. It was such an amazing feeling, and I didn’t stutter or repeat myself once.

The second night I had the joy of relaxing and watching the 16 other girls have their turn. By the end of the week, I had made so many new friends. I am one of these people who are naturally sceptical about the lasting power of these ‘holiday-friendships.’ From my experience there are those friendships that last and those that run their course. But hopefully, between swapping numbers and photos, I’ll have the privilege of meeting up with some of these lovely young ladies again before I leave these shores for the big bold city of London.

What does your t-shirt say about you?

…someone is always clocking you….

The exams start today and the clothing trend around UCC has moved from simply girls making an effort to dress nice to rescue themselves from the depths of despair to a number of people opting for ‘amusing’ t-shirts. All say something, some more amusing than others. Some just downright embarrassing. But all food for thought in the great game of people-watching and avoiding study. Here’s a few reflections on the t-shirts I’ve seen today and what they say about the bodies therein contained:

1. Guy outside library Mk I

‘I PREDICT A DIET.’

Obviously bought for amusing play on popular hip-rock song of the Kaiser Chiefs, as oppose to ominous prediction of a future nutrition plan. (the wearer was not at all rotund.) Plain black, simple clear writing. pointed out by a friend of mine, thus obvious to the casual observer as oppose to just a t-shirt hawk. Overall perception: good – funny and inoffensive, safely playing on popular culture. As long as he didn’t pay more than €10 for it and didn’t get it specially made as a testament to his own wit, overall not a bad staple wardrobe item. Not very telling however: impossible to know whether he’s just a guy who needed a t-shirt and said tee hee or just an asshole who thinks he’s hilarious for spotting the pun. Latter an entire possibility. But an air of mystery never hurt anyone.

5/10 for playing it safe.

2. Girl walking through campus.

‘ I <3 MY BOYFRIEND.’

Ooh, not a popular one. the <3 represents an actual large pink heart. The writing was giant-front-of-tshirt-covering-writing. Bold. on a white t-shirt. And she was walking along with her boyfriend. Holding hands. She is one of two things: someone with a sense of irony wanting to make her fellow collegegoers snigger, or a complete twat. The t-shirt was pointed out to me under the latter assumption. And the impression left with me was of same. She may just be a colossal knobhead. In which case I hope the t-shirt was expensive and her boyfriend dumps her next week. While she’s wearing the t-shirt.

3/10 – only awarded points for slightly hilarious daydream of her possible fate. (read getting dumped.)

3. Minor cheat: told about guy in t-shirt that said ‘PANTS’ on it.

Worth including for its ability to leave a mark, if for nothing else. Good work. Its simple. See, it’s not pants. it’s a t-shirt. it’s the punchline that just delivers itself. The joke that just keeps on giving throughout the difficult morning period.

7/10 for word of mouth quality, lasting impression despite no visible sightings on my behalf.

4. Boy in library

‘JOE COOL SNOOPY T-SHIRT.’

Classic, cute and no need for try-hard jokes. I like. As the proud owner of a joe cool snoopy t-shirt myself, I have to say I fully approve of having Woodstock’s sleepy friend emblazoned on your attire. Thought of marriage proposal, decided exam time probably not best occasion to start planning a wedding, or make any big decisions. Went back studying instead.

9/10 for possible soulmate status.

5. Boy at Computers

‘THIS GUY (HAND IN MIDDLE OF THE T-SHIRT POINTING TO PERSON NEXT TO HIM) LOVES C*CK’

A nice twist on the classic ‘I’m with stupid gag.’ Good effort at ballsy comedy (he could have been next to anybody really) and a joke that changes itself throughout the day (think of all the people he could end up standing next to.) Also, a nice nod to the trend of dragging stuffy American PC humour out of the 1980s. You’re not with stupid anymore, you’re telling strangers your friend likes cock. Next, it’ll be taking out the * in cock. Baby steps though, this is an institution of higher learning, after all. Still, worth a hawkish crane of the neck.

8/10 for a new spin on a classic.

6. Boy outside library Mk. II

‘MULLET MUSEUM’

With lots of pictures of mullets. hmmm, tricky one. T-shirt – potentially funny. A few schoolboy errors: the pictures of the mullets were too small and thus lost their desired effect from more than a few feet away. (to save myself from further restraining orders, I have to keep some decorum.) Also, wearer just that bit too scrawny to carry it off. Results in pictures being lost around his sides.

6/10 for effort.

And finally, my good self…

The trend had to start somewhere. I’m sporting a nice t-shirt with a picture of a bunny doing a duck from behind that says ‘Wrong’ underneath. It’s more a white silhouette on a navy t-shirt. I am so hilarious. Maybe not, but great conversation piece when my wafer thin guise of a personality fails me. Oh ya.

10/10 for sheer awesomeness.

Also, in an interesting twist, ran into a guy in the queue for water in the main restaurant wearing a similar t-shirt but his bunny was f*cking a chicken. what are the odds? Soon after, spotted a guy coming into the library as I was leaving wearing a t-shirt with too panda’s doing it on it. Must be that spring/summer mating feeling everyone is talking about.