The va-va-what?!

Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

By first glance this is just a photo of two ladies in dresses. Some might recognize this as a photo of Jason Wu Autumn/Winter 2013 collection, which was taken yesterday during the ongoing New York fashion week. However, for me this photo illustrates something different.

Thanks to a five-month research, I've spent quite some time with appearance, body, sexuality, gender and identity. I've spent hours looking for knowledge and opinions about how, especially we (meaning we as women or whatever you want to call the human beings without a penis) should be, behave and portray ourselves.

I've discovered blogs, vlogs, clips, lists, articles, advertisements, photos, tv-shows, documentaries...I've discussed with friends, debated with collegues, listened to children, observed people around me, and even gone down the memory lane to my childhood to figure out what is going on. The thing that keeps recurring, is the ideal of a woman.

As Mr. Wu points out, this year is all woman, not girlie, not mannish (whatever this means). The main goal of his collection was to bring back the woman to the runway. "Red that offset the mostly black-and-white combinations was the va-va-voom" (check the whole article here: http://news.yahoo.com/uggs-ugh-ny-fashion-week-battles-elements-154327665.html).


Most of the time I try not to get too carried away with all gender equality -talk and angry woman, who are provoked every time when someone makes a distinction between a man and a woman. But va-va-voom? Seriously?! Is this what we should pursue?


Is the ideal of a woman a skinny stick-figure strouting on the runway in a long red dress? Being perfect has become such a mantra that departing from it (for example by not wearing make-up or eating pizza instead of air) must be justified.

Women in all ages are constantly bombarded with suggestions of what to be and what not to be, how to behave and how not to behave. Where did we go so wrong?