Everybody (Else) Is Perfect

by Gabrielle Korn

  The concept of empowerment gets extra confusing when you add in the layer of empowerment on an individual level compared to empowerment for all. Many fashion brands align with the former as though it gets them out of the latter, like Victoria’s Secret; as supermodel Karlie Kloss told the Telegraph in March 2018,

  There’s something really powerful about a woman who owns her sexuality and is in charge. A show like this celebrates that and allows all of us to be the best versions of ourselves. Whether it’s wearing heels, make-up, or a beautiful piece of lingerie—if you are in control and empowered by yourself, it’s sexy.

  But who, exactly, is allowed access to that feeling? In a world where consumers have been demanding representation for different sizes, races, and gender expressions, VS insisted on remaining a source of glorification for the same tall, thin bodies, with a product designed for them and only them. Despite that, it’s another brand that claims to be empowering for women, because of the alleged result the product has on the individual wearing it.

  The brand had also cited things like its admittedly decent racial diversity and how well paid the models are as evidence of how empowering it is. But there had never been any curve or trans models in a VS show, and many of their models spoke publicly about the starvation diets they were expected to adhere to in order to prepare for the televised show. Claiming empowerment under those circumstances was akin to gaslighting. And equating thinness to power was also eerily reminiscent of the values of NXIVM.

  It was actually validating when Vogue ran a story in which, in a response to a question about whether the “Instagram generation” was looking for something different from their runway show, Victoria’s Secret chief marketing officer Ed Razek came out and admitted to it:

  It’s like, why doesn’t your show do this? Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy. It’s a 42-minute entertainment special. That’s what it is. It is the only one of its kind in the world, and any other fashion brand in the world would take it in a minute, including the competitors that are carping at us. And they carp at us because we’re the leader.

  Every time I read this quote I got stuck on the word “fantasy.” It was so wildly illuminating. Runways had become the sites of fantasy for the rich, straight white men casting them. They were not for women. But they were trying to sell us something anyway. And Vogue, for what it’s worth, despite being the outlet to publish the interview, continued to glorify the show, running stories like “The Victoria’s Secret Angels Took Over the Plaza Hotel for an Epic Pre-Show Sleepover” and “Ahead of the Victoria’s Secret Show, See Adriana, Bella, Gigi, Behati, and More Play Two Truths and a Lie.”

  It would have been so easy to react in a meaningful way. Nylon’s video team, too, had filmed a video backstage with the Angels, but after this interview came out I decided to kill it. Instead, one of our editors, Taylor Bryant, wrote a story in which she interviewed trans models about how that quote made them feel. Her ongoing coverage of the incident became our top-performing stories of the month. It was a no-brainer, and many women’s media outlets made similar decisions, while people on Twitter and Instagram erupted with very appropriately directed outrage. It led to an incredibly important, internet-wide conversation about the damage that Victoria’s Secret has done, and the attention began to shift to brands in the same space doing an actually great job; like Rihanna’s lingerie line, Savage x Fenty. During NYFW in 2019, Rihanna showcased the collection on dancers and models of all races, sizes, and genders at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, and it was the most glorious celebration of diversity that I’ve ever witnessed. I covered it for Instyle magazine and concluded my piece with “Victoria could never.” It was the final nail in Victoria’s coffin, too: several months later, VS announced they’d no longer be doing their show at all.

  Part of the problem is that these two universes—the universe of feminist-branded companies that are walking the walk, and the ones that are just using the words—don’t generally seem to interact with each other. And when they do, in my experience, it’s rarely productive; no one wants to be told that their version of empowerment is flawed. I’ve witnessed this firsthand many times, but one incident in particular stands out: A few years ago I was asked to moderate a panel at a daylong conference geared around empowering young women in their careers. It was at a beautiful convention center in Brooklyn filled with vendor booths selling makeup and vitamin supplements, and featured selfie stations that included a ball pit and a flower wall. The other people on my panel were influencers, fashion bloggers, one designer, and one blogger-turned-designer. They were all there because they were, allegedly, empowered young feminist women who were disrupting their industries and setting a strong example for other women.

  One of the questions I asked them, in front of a crowd of several hundred people, was about copycatting in fashion and how, if at all, that impacts their work. The designer was a woman who founded her own company with the goal of helping create jobs for women in African countries; her work is gorgeous and very expensive, thanks to the way she collaborates with local artisans and pays them fair wages. She spoke for a while about how when fast-fashion companies rip off designers, it takes jobs away from women. The blogger-turned-designer, who had just announced the launch of her own clothing line and a partnership with a major department store, said something to the effect of, “I don’t know anything about that.”

  The designer became extremely upset. She was sitting right next to me, and I could see her chest turn pink with rage. She demanded to know how someone launching a line could not know about where her clothes are being made. It turned into a bit of an accusatory rant. The blogger, who was sitting on the other side of me, began to cry. I looked out into the audience and saw everyone with their phones up, filming the moment; the ones who didn’t have their phones up had their hands over their agape mouths. As the moderator, it was my job to, well, moderate. I thought the designer was ultimately right but that she was being somewhat of a bully. I said, “Since it’s possible that some people in the audience also don’t know about where fast fashion comes from, could you recommend some resources?” I don’t remember what her answer was, but I quickly changed the subject after she gave it. After the panel, the speakers fled, and I wasn’t asked back to the conference.

  A few months later, the blogger’s debut line sold out within minutes of its launch. There’s nothing I can find on her websites about whether or not she ever did look into sustainability of any sort, but based on the fact that it’s allegedly the most successful partnership the department store has ever had, I have to assume that there’s no labor- or environment-friendly way to keep up with the demand at the low price point. Worth noting, she was also one of the thinnest people I’ve ever met, and I googled her name plus “eating disorder” to see if she’d ever written about maybe a struggle with body image. Instead I found multiple Reddit threads picking apart her appearance, debating whether or not her skinniness makes her “perfect” or “disgusting.” I wondered about the pressure she’s under as the face/body of a rapidly growing fashion empire.

  I wondered, too, about how much her own ideas of perfection are influencing the product she was selling; the pants didn’t go above a 34-inch waist.

  So how, then, does a brand go about setting up a structure for actual, true female empowerment? Obviously, under capitalism, there’s really no such thing as ethical production and consumption—but I once got an email with the subject line “Empowered Candles for Boss Women” and I am sure we can at least do better than that. So I made a little checklist:

  Is your staff made up of a diverse group of people, including people of color, LGBTQ people, women, and combinations therein? Are you treating them well?

  Are there people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and combinations therein in leadership positions? More than one? Are those people of different identities from each other?

  Are you paying everyone fai
rly, based on the work they are currently doing?

  Do they have good benefits? Do they have parental leave?

  Does the product you’re selling actually improve the lives of the people who purchase or use it in a meaningful way?

  Do the images you’re using to sell your product show a wide range of women? Are those women paid and treated well?

  Are you giving back to the community that you’re making money off of?

  Does every step of the production process use fair labor? Is it environmentally sustainable?

  Can anyone of any body type use and benefit from your product?

  Are the people financially benefiting from the success of your product also invested in empowering marginalized communities? What are they doing to show that?

  It’s not an exhaustive list, but it covers the bare-minimum feminist-oriented elements of a brand that can honestly say it’s built on things like empowerment, diversity, and inclusion.

  I wish I could say that I’ve watched women’s media become consistently more empowering, but like everything, it ebbs and flows. Some companies have diversified their staffs and their content completely, while others claim to have done so but still have all-white executive teams. I could only control so much at Nylon, but I was ultimately lucky; the sales team checked in with me before pursuing leads with companies that we criticized. Still, I often lay awake at night worrying about whether or not our content was making the world a better place, or at least not making it worse.

  There’s probably no institution doing anything perfectly, no one single thing that checks all the boxes and should stay exactly as is. But as our understanding of privilege and equality evolves, so, too, must our language. I know that there are a ton of people who feel as I do. My hope is that these adverse reactions to market feminism and commercialized empowerment or whatever you want to call it don’t end up circling us back to where we were before, when no one thought to be a self-described badass bitch or a boundary-breaking AF girl boss. Because ultimately, when you unnecessarily feminize language, it’s probably counterproductive to long-term feminist goals. To paraphrase a brilliant point that Amanda Montell made in her book Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, everything from cute marketing lingo like She-E-O to more serious editorials about “women in music” serves to reinforce the idea that men are the norm, a neutral identity. Consider the fact that a title lacking a gendered qualifier implies maleness: a male CEO would never be a He-E-O—he’s just a CEO—and a man in music is just a musician. The words we use to celebrate and then sell women’s empowerment can also serve to hold it back.

  But really, and importantly, it’s not just an issue of selling empowerment or appropriating feminism to uphold beauty standards but the fact that our words can be used against us to justify all kinds of violence. I’ve seen phrases like “sexual agency” twisted to defend the legitimacy of a relationship based on statutory rape, while female antiabortion activists describe themselves as “feminists for life” and transphobic lesbians call themselves “rad fems,” for radical feminists. The women who joined NXIVM called themselves empowered badasses as they starved themselves and blackmailed other women into becoming sex slaves.

  I do actually think it’s positive that we even created a feminist language at all, but if it is co-opted for other means—if our words turn out to be the master’s tools—I think it’ll be crucial that we not hesitate to create new terminology, a shift that will be, as Audre Lorde said, “only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.” And this new language should invoke the feeling in the air: that real change is long overdue, and no one is going to make sure it happens but us.

  11 Nobody Else Is Perfect

  There’s an idea in astrology that when the planet Saturn returns to your birth chart, which happens every twenty-nine to thirty years depending on when you were born, it brings with it a period of intense, emotionally charged change, which in turn leads to new wisdom and self-awareness.

  I am actually not a die-hard astrology believer—I think you can tell more about someone based on their thoughts on astrology than astrology’s thoughts on them. But even so, there were multiple periods in my twenties that I had thought might be connected to my Saturn return. My breakup with Avery and subsequent move to Brooklyn. My final recovery from anorexia. Maybe my promotion to editor in chief of Nylon. Surely one of those major changes would mark my astrological ascendance to adulthood. Finally I googled my birth chart to see when exactly it would happen, and it hadn’t been any of those things. Saturn wouldn’t return to me until January 2019 and would stay until October. At that point, I would have been EIC for over a year, with Wallace for a year and a half, and happily picturing what the rest of my life could look like counting on those two constants. I decided maybe Saturn return was a made-up thing and forgot about it.

  After all, in January 2019, I had a lot more to worry about than when or if my Saturn would return. I was managing a team of nearly twenty people across four departments, overseeing a website redesign, and running a content schedule of twenty to thirty articles a day plus monthly cover stories. I had also just signed a contract to write this book—a lifelong dream, but I had no idea when I was supposed to actually do it. I’d written the proposal for it on the subway.

  Part of the reason I was always so busy had to do with the small size of the company. It was all very DIY—literally. I was way more hands-on than other EICs, mostly because my team was so tiny that I had to be. And I didn’t have an executive assistant. So much of what ate up my time was nebulous, things like schlepping to and from Brooklyn and trying to manage my calendar. I didn’t feel like I could take any time off because there wasn’t really anyone to do my job in my absence. So even though I knew I was hitting my limit, I tried to power through. I didn’t see another option.

  I thought I knew what busy was, but until the start of the new year, I’d really had no idea.

  On a typical day, I woke up around eight a.m. and spent twenty minutes scrolling through Instagram. By the time I dragged myself out of bed and made it to the couch, Wallace had been up for an hour and a half. We drank coffee together quietly; I rested my head on her shoulder as my eyes adjusted to the morning light. I showered quickly and put on a fancy dress: on the day I’m remembering, it was long-sleeve and floor-length, with frilly tiers of fabric and a pussy bow, in a shiny yellow gold with an intricate pattern made up of abstract women’s faces. We took the subway into Manhattan together—a three-train commute, the G to the C to the F.

  I almost always had around five hundred emails by the time I got to the office, and this morning was no different. I got through as many of them as possible, then had a meeting with the marketing department, and then tried to read as much of the website as I could.

  At eleven a.m., I ran over to Ludlow House on the Lower East Side, which was an offshoot of Soho House, an uber-bougie members-only global clubhouse chain. There, about fifty fashion editors were squished into an elegant room; there were racks of clothing along the walls, plush velvet chairs, and waiters bringing around teeny-tiny breakfast morsels, none of which I was able to grab. I’d been to this room before; last time, it was to meet Madonna and hear about her new skin-care line. This time, a pop star was debuting a new fashion collaboration, and we were all there to see it, and more importantly, see her.

  There was a small stage at the front of the room with a cluster of bored-looking models dressed in the clothes. Some were standing; some were leaning against props. They were so skinny. They looked like teenagers. I wondered what sizes they were wearing. Extra extra extra small? I wondered what sizes the line went up to. Either way, they were basically wearing yoga pants and sports bras, and I was fixated on their impossibly thin waists. The pop star, who had designed collections before, was infamous for casting models who looked like this, and I didn’t know why I was so surprised.

  I stopped gawking and checked my email on
my phone. I’d gotten about one hundred more since I left the office. I scrolled for a few minutes and then looked back up.

  One of the models was flat on the floor.

  Two other models rushed to her side. A woman with a headset emerged from backstage with some orange juice. The model who fainted propped herself up on her elbows and took a few timid sips. I heard one of the other models say to the production person, “It’s just really hot up here.” I looked around to see if anyone in the crowd noticed. Most people were chatting with their peers, not watching the scene unfold on the stage. I saw a few other women quietly staring, but no one said anything. The models helped the other girl up and they walked her offstage; they then immediately returned to their posts.

  Moments later a PR person appeared and everyone was quiet. She introduced the pop star, who came onstage with a friend. They were both, they told us, hungover from the launch party the night before; and they were both clothed in the line. The pop star looked like a beautiful, tiny bird, the smallness of her legs magnified by the spandex. I could see the knobs of her knees. After a quick chat, they took audience questions. Someone asked, “What part of your body do you love the most?”

  She stammered for a moment and said, “Well, actually I’m very critical about my body.”

  She then tried to course correct, saying that probably all women are hard on themselves and that we need to prioritize being kind to ourselves and, more importantly, kind to others. She had not answered the question and had instead given us a motivational speech about love and self-love. After, she walked the editors in small groups through the collections. She described the colors as “biscuit” and “sunset orange.” The clothes, as expected, were great: the kind of slouchy soft things that gave you that cool-without-trying vibe. I left immediately after, sick to my stomach over the poor model who fainted, and frustrated with the hypocrisy; how could a woman so infamously thin talk about how critical she was of her own body and the importance of self-love at the same time? And how could she in good conscience cast models to represent her brand who are so thin they literally can’t stand up?