What's The Best Thing Anyone Ever Said to You about Beauty?

Let Me Tell You What I Heard....

My great friend, the French couturier Azzedine Alaïa, once told me:

“Anyone can become Beautiful at any time.”

Source: Arthur Elgort

But what does that actually mean?

His mission for women was to make clothes that ignited respect and desire in equal measure. Widely considered as one of the greatest fashion designers of the last century Azzedine told me, “becoming beautiful is sometimes just the question of finding the right haircut and the right dress.”

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Of course, that’s easier said than done, and he was speaking only to the visual component of beauty.

How do you attain that beauty? Not just on the outside, how can you build it from inside, from beauty’s true source?

How can you keep beauty growing, especially in the second half of life? Fighting for your own sense of beauty - when 90% of the messages coming at us seem to train us to focus on our flaws instead of believing in and developing our own beauty.

Reconsider How you ‘Talk’ to yourself about Beauty?

What do you Say?

Our every thought about Beauty contributes to our own well-being, and the well-being of others, literally for generations to come. Our every thought affects us on a cellular level, you can literally think yourself sick with negative dialogue, or practice the power of positive thinking to empower yourself. . It’s essential. People who love and admire us pick up on, and internalize, our attitudes and beliefs about our beauty and bodies - very often adopting them as their own.What you condition yourself to believe goes out into the world in powerful ways we can’t often imagine.

Teamwork is the Dream Work - Selfie Courtesy of @veronicawebb

There’s been a global vibe shift since my early days of discovering and claiming my place as part of the original generation of 90s Supermodels. No one gave much thought about women in those days, little to no respect was given for how our miraculous bodies uniquely change and grow. Finding your own personal Beauty was not encouraged - fitting the mold was the order of the day. Yet after the Supermodels the height of ‘body positivity in the 90s was Kate Moss, who took the world and the runways by storm despite her waif-like frame, plus her diminutive 5’9 stature. There are no rules to beauty - so why be bound by society conventions?

Nothing has made me appreciate and understand beauty more than
having daughters.

Teenage years are rife with confusion and hypercritical moments of self-examination. “Mom! I’m stupid I’m fat! I’m ugly!” or perhaps “I’ll never be…” and you can fill in the blank with whatever… I’d tell my girls, “Do you think I’m fat or ugly?” I could see in their faces they were just as shocked and pained that I might think that of myself as I was at hearing that’s how they felt about themselves in the moment.

I tell my daughters, “Girls, you’re the best of me."

When I look in the mirror I see my mother’s face in my face. Her kindness, strength and beauty staring back at me. All of my ancestors' faces and qualities are present in my face and it’s an immense and rich inheritance. A beautiful place to both begin and end appreciating our unique Beauty.

Value your Beauty that’s Beauty with a capital B - the Beauty that you inherited from your ancestors. Beauty is something we pass down through generations both genetically and by example.

There’s still so much more I want to tell you - come back next week for Part Two…

I’ll keep you posted.

Veronica