Image consultants for teens?

13th July 2009

Image consultants for teens?

posted in Body Image, Fashion, Feminist Topics |

The Washington Post reports on how an increasing number of teen girls are seeking out the services (and reassurances) of image consultants. Once the privilege of Hollywood stars and other celebs, image consultants are now becoming commonplace among teen girls whom they advise on hairstyles, makeup and wardrobe. Apparently self-esteem is so hard to be had for girls now that they have to pay “experts” to help them develop it.

Even if the economy were booming, the idea of a teenager using an image consultant is perplexing, to say the least. But the trend has been taking hold among young girls who have been raised on a steady diet of pop culture, from “The Hills” to “Hannah Montana,” girls who are being shaped by an industry that trades in reinvention.

…Reality shows like “How Do I Look?” and “What Not to Wear” usually center on the remarkable before-and-after transformations of the participants. Maybe it was only a matter of time before the trend hit teens and preteens. The idea of perpetually camera-ready teens is what youth market analysts call KGOY, “kids getting older younger,” which is, of course, no new phenomenon.

The Post reports that these image consultants generally charge about a $100 an hour for their services, although some barter their services in exchange for babysitting, etc… Why the pressure to spend their allowances on pricey consultants? The pressure to look good and fit in are among the prime motivations.

Ultimately, it’s not what to wear that concerns them. It’s the pressure to wear it better.

“I dress for other girls,” admits Meredith.

“It can be pretty competitive,” Kate says with a nod, placing her mini Chanel bag over a slender shoulder. “You don’t want to see someone wearing the same thing.”

Adjusting her Burberry headband, Jane adds, “But we don’t want to be the different one, either.”

…But the image consultant is not just a sign of adolescent precociousness and privilege. It is also, for some, a balm for the troubles of adolescence. It’s tough being a teenage girl, as it probably has been since time immemorial.

“You have bad skin, you’re ugly, your body’s gross,” [Hannah[ remembers. “I would be so depressed I wanted to see a therapist.”

Image consultants may help teens develop better confidence and self-esteem, but they do so by helping them conform to the same social forces and pressures that bolster poor self-image among girls and women, thus making for a self-perpetuating industry. Still, I’m not quite sure that had I had the luxury of an image consultant in my gawky teen years if I wouldn’t have taken advantage of someone, anyone, to help guide me through such an uncomfortable and awkward time. I’ve posted here before how simply getting an awesome and flattering hairstyle made a HUGE difference in my self-esteem. How about you? Would you have benefited from an image consultant in your teen years?

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1 On July 13th, 2009, Carleigh said:

Hi there. Funnily enough, I started my own “personal services” image consulting thing a couple of years ago. I am 25 and a size 24 and have been at least an 18 since high school. Dressing well and liking how I looked has been the most instrumental part of my personal development–and I have always been a clothes horse. I decided to do image consulting and personal styling when I was working at a nonprofit and hanging around with a lot of teenage girls who had little self esteem from their aesthetic selves. I remember the first time I took a girl to Lane Bryant and showed her that in fact she could fit into women’s jeans (she had only ever worn men’s dickies). Image consulting specifically with young, plus-size women who have little self esteem to begin with can be challenging–you have to go slowly and be tenurous and accept the girls’ hesitations and withdrawals often, but incredibly rewarding. And it feels great to constantly recycle my own discarded clothes to my “clients” when I’m finished with them.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 11:12 am

2 On July 13th, 2009, Twistie said:

I think I’m glad this wasn’t around when I was a teen. Of course, if it had been, I think I would have ridiculed the hell out of it.

Yes, wearing flattering clothes and having a good haircut can do wonders for self-esteem. Yes, a personal style is something I highly recommend finding. But three quarters of the fun for me was finding it on my own, making my own mistakes, and doing my own experiments. In the end, all the pride of accomplishment has been mine.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 11:49 am

3 On July 13th, 2009, Amy said:

In the earlier teen years, I totally would have. While I had the benefit of the other cheerleaders on the squad to mimic and/or look toward for fashion tips, it didn’t translate across body types. Same for magazines. Fashionable or not, it’s just more *comfortable* when you finally learn what types of clothes fit you the best. That would have been lovely to know earlier.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 12:15 pm

4 On July 13th, 2009, Meryt Bast said:

Good God Almighty. I’m so glad I was a “different” girl. I did what I wanted and didn’t care about what the other girls were wearing. It never would have occurred to me to hire an image consultant. If I was in doubt about something, I asked my mother and sisters.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

5 On July 13th, 2009, Rachel said:

@Carleigh: That’s a very interesting perspective. How do clients find you?

@Meryt Bast: Yeah, where were Clinton and Kelly when I was a teen? Of course, they didn’t really make much in the way of affordable plus-size clothes when I was a teen (that I knew of, anyway).

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

6 On July 13th, 2009, Samantha C said:

wow…that just seems so…over the top. I’m incredibly lucky to have the friends I did in high school. None of us would have ever considered hiring someone to tell us how to be more popular, and we would have mercilessly mocked anyone who spent that kind of money to do so (It makes me wonder whether the Image Consultants have to be kept secret– if you’re so uncool that you need to pay someone to make you cool, wouldn’t that still make you uncool?). We just hung out in a hidden part of the school at lunchtime, swapping comic books and talking about science, and remembering how futile and ultimately useless it is to try to be popular, and how much more fun it was to be geeks. I just wore jeans and my t-shirts every single day, because it was comfortable that way! I still do! The other girl in our group just wore awsome skirts and sci-fi shirts and dressed amazingly without being “fashionable”. The rest of us were guys, not under nearly the same pressure to care.

I’ll preface this by saying I don’t mean to put anyone down, and I’m trying to phrase this to make it clear it’s my personal gut reaction, not that it’s the truth about anyone who was involved in this fashion lifestyle. But when I see or hear about girls so drawn into the world of fashion and looks and image, I just don’t understand it. I always wind up thinking, how can there be so little in their lives that this is such a big deal? How can there be so little there that having a bad wardrobe can ruin them? Don’t they like any TV shows or movies or books well enough to have conversations about them? Don’t they like to paint or draw or write or play music or play a sport or collect stamps or go hiking or even design their own fashions? I just don’t understand fashion as a hobby, and I understand it even less as a lifestyle. How could it really be so important that you’re dressed exactly in the right style? I understand that I’m lucky to have hidden away from those kinds of social pressures, I understand that it’s very difficult for many girls to get away from them. But just…if you want to build your self-esteem, do something you’re good at!

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 1:15 pm

7 On July 13th, 2009, Lampdevil said:

I can look at this NOW and think “what a terrible idea, and isn’t it sad”, but putting myself in my awkward, confused, badly-dressed teenage shoes… OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I’d have KICKED PUPPIES for something like this. My self-esteem was crud, and I always was the strange girl that never quite fit, but I could have at least benefitted from some professional intervention to keep my mom from giving me horrid haircuts and foisting hideous hand me down clothes upon me. I spent a lot of time feeling very ugly and horrible because I had no female role models with a lick of modern fashion sense and no idea how to de-ugly myself. Magazines were certainly no help. Even if I weren’t a pudgy girl, I was out in the boonies with no access to all this fantastic stuff that was supposed to make me look “good”.

Stepping back into my confident, well-groomed adult shoes, I know that the past can’t be changed. Am I fine as I am, as the sum total of my experiences? Eh, I’m alright. But that extra kick-in-the-pants of confidence that comes with knowing that you look FANTASTIC could have gotten me a lot farther than I wound up going.

Something about the concept doesn’t seem to reflect a fluffing and polishing of ugly ducklings, though. It just seems to be another way for the swans to preen and raise their standing amongst each other. Chanel bags? What? Whaaaat? I’d have resisted, RESISTED the idea that I ought to be more like THEM, because they were mean and bad, and therefore beauty standards were bad and awful, oh woe, oh woe… Any attempt to look good for it’s own sake is easily co-opted into looking good to conform, or looking good to impress a peer group, or looking good because you’re a shallow sheep who has all the depth of a teaspoon. (I had a conversation recently with a male friend who failed to understand my joy at finally getting and using makeup, who declared that it’s all shallow artifice used by insecure people and NATURAL women are much better and we had us a lovely argument on the subject.)

I’m all over the place on this one. Halp?

8 On July 13th, 2009, Lampdevil said:

@Samantha C – No offense taken with any of what you’ve said. I understand the perspective you’re coming from. I held it for a long time. I was the Queen Of The Nerd Table, resplendant in my Magic cards and Japanese comic books and strange home-blended nail polish. Fashion? Bah! Fashion is for THEM, those… those shallow ones who do nothing but worry about their boots from Toronto and who’s dating who and what HORRIBLE lives they must lead!

…nowadays, I don’t see it like that so much. Caring about your appearance and enjoying haute couture and keeping up on trends can be as much a hobby as anything else. Sing, read, write, cook, dance, dress, liiiiive… there are a lot of hours in the day to fill, and fashion will not overwhelm all the others if you don’t let it. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to look good. There’s just tons and tons and TONS of baggage around it, lots of expectations heaped upon us, and lots of personal identification to be found in either embracing it, rejecting it, or having the priviledge of paying it no mind at all.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 1:23 pm

9 On July 13th, 2009, Elisa said:

Carleigh,
I was actually considering doing something like that – since I wish I’d have KNOWN about plus-sized fashion as a teenager, instead of simply making do with what I could find (I’m an in-betweenie, as they’d say on Shapely Prose, so I can sometimes find things in the “straight” sections and Lane Bryant outfits often hang on me like tents because their fit model and I do not mesh… But the first time I walked into an Avenue store and EVERYTHING FIT, I almost cried). Anyway, I’m curious about how you get clients too!

As for the average American teenager, waaaaay too much emphasis is placed on fashion. There would have been no effing way my parents would have let me buy anything with a designer label on it (if we’d even had the money to do so). Unfortunately I’m kind of unable to form a coherent thought this morning (sigh) but there are enough things out there for a teenager to worry about (grades, college, driving, sex/abstinence/pregnancy/STDs and all that jazz, etc., etc., etc.) without rushing out to grab the latest designer whatchamacalit…

Lampdevil, I agree that appearance and fashion can be a hobby – but it sounds to me like many of these girls are bordering on obsession…

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 1:57 pm

10 On July 13th, 2009, Emerald said:

Ouch….this is a place that still hurts. My mother believed that appearance was all-important, that it should be my full-time occupation, and that if it wasn’t something was seriously wrong with me. As if that wasn’t enough, her sense of style stopped somewhere around 1952, and I reached my teens in 1980. The tragedy is that while I wasn’t as fashion-mad as some teens can be, I was a creative kid and I was interested in messing around with clothes and makeup. But that wasn’t appreciated. The few times I did get a chance to choose my own clothes and play with looks a little, I got compiments from other people, but got verbally trashed into a weeping heap at home. After that happens a few times, you lose any sense of what you want to wear.

I could have really, really done with…not an image consultant, but a wardrobe buddy, let’s say, to back up my development in that area. I had an aunt who fulfilled that role a few times, but she wasn’t around enough to have any major effect. It took me until my thirties to get interested in clothes again and develop a sense of how I wanted to look.

I can understand the point of view that fashion is, for many women, just another pastime. Thing is, if it’s going to be fun it shouldn’t be obligatory. The key word I used above is play; it’s another form of creativity. But like all creativity, it should primarily be about pleasing yourself, not worrying about whether you meet the approval of others. And for too many people, an approval game is exactly what it turns into. This is why I still avoid the whole thing of following fashion, as far as possible. Unless the stuff that’s fashionable and the stuff that I personally like happen to intersect – and come in my size – which isn’t often.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

11 On July 13th, 2009, TropicalChrome said:

Call me shallow, but I could have used something like this as a teenager. Not because it would have made me more popular – there were issues far deeper than simply clothes and hairstyle – but because, well, my mommy dressed me funny. She was convinced that large people needed short hair (I look terrible in short hair) and since her wardrobe was made up of polyester pull on pants, so mine should be, too. And since Mom controlled the purse strings….well, you see where this is going. It wasn’t until midway through high school that I finally started asserting myself and taking some control over what I wore. It wasn’t until halfway through college that I finally had the gumption to let my hair grow and wow, it looked great.

Again, I don’t kid myself that this would have prevented all tbe bullying I endured. But I really think it would have helped me at a deep and fundamental level.

Of course, my mother would never have let me go, since she would be convinced it was a waste of money. Fortunately, she has no say in my life anymore.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 2:21 pm

12 On July 13th, 2009, Lampdevil said:

@Elisa – I agree that there are signs of fashion obsession in the above article. Which I think is a symptom of the society that we live in, and the place in society that these girls currently occupy. Social status in high school means so much, and in such an immediate sense, that it’s easy to become fixated with it. When your whole world is high school and that’s the only context that you know how to operate within, getting consumed by it is easy. The bright horizons of real life are seriously obscured. (If there was one thing I could tell my younger self, it would be that it gets better. And my younger self would have never believed it.)

So on one hand, we need to encourage independance from consumer culture and learn to embrace our own uniqueness! And.. on… the other hand, we all ought to be free to express ourselves through what we wear. Dude. I want a “wardrobe buddy” now. I think we all could use cool “wardrobe buddies”.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

13 On July 13th, 2009, Alice said:

Having an artist for a mother was a GODSEND. I knew about things like what colors worked for me, and had ideas about what I wanted to wear. That said, I certianly wasn’t the most fashionable (that same artist made some of my clothes, and while many of them were cool, many were … not).

I can’t see myself using an IC were I a teenager today, just because there was always a bit of snobbery going on – if I paid someone for their style advice, then I was being duped, and I wasn’t being ‘genuine’. Had my mothers’ and my aesthetics diverged more, though, I might have really loved having someone around who knew what they were talking about.

None of the ICs in the article seemed predatory, but I do think that the whole thing is problematic, as it unquestioningly supports the idea that we dress for other people, and that appearance is important enough to drop huge amounts of $ on. Feeling good in your clothing, skin and adornments is a wonderful thing, and if people want help to get there, I think that can be great. It’s just worrisome when the focus may be much more on ‘how to avoid nasty comments on your Facebook page’. The former is doable and even laudable; the latter is forever out of your control, and is a good way to keep your self-esteem underdeveloped.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

14 On July 13th, 2009, Karen said:

I was fortunate to have a best friend and larger circle of friends who weren’t horribly fashion crazy. One or two were but not enough to make us feel we had to also. Jeans and pocket T-shirts were standard for us in the early 70’s post-Woodstock pre-preppy days. My mom had no clue about fashion. My older sister did but she, being older, got by with shifts, peasant skirts and tunic tops. Pant suits (OMG!!!!) had just become fashionable. (crikey – am I that old?) We were marching band groupies, theatre rats and science geeks all at the same time and we had our own wing of the high school to hang out in, easy to avoid the cheerleaders and pageant queens.

I would have seen a fashion consultant as a waste of time but, as I say, I had a supportive circle. I was chubby with frizzy hair and glasses but had enough else going for me that I didn’t care too much – sometimes it hurt but I was usually too busy. I would have liked someone to have shown me how to tame my hair but other than that I was comfortable – as I remember it, anyway.

I like watching WNTW – I like Stacy and Clinton’s emphasis on dressing for how you are, that you can look good at any size. Some of the personal stories are memorable and the “retail therapy” is interesting. I don’t see them taking on teens – it’s usually older women and the occasional man – who have either given up or are just clueless.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 4:16 pm

15 On July 13th, 2009, Gene said:

Man, when I was a teenager (which was pretty recently), I don’t think I would have taken an image consultant’s advice. I knew exactly how I wanted to look, and I thought I looked awesome. I still don’t regret anything I wore, anything I did with my hair, or anything I put on my face. It all had a purpose at the time.
That said, it would have saved a lot of time if someone had told me you’re supposed to apply mascara from *under* the lashes.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 4:32 pm

16 On July 13th, 2009, Alyssa (The 39 year-old) said:

For the love of Pete, when does it end? Teen image consultants, photoshopping baby pictures, what the hell is next?!?!?!Plastic surgery in the womb?
Enough already!

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 5:36 pm

17 On July 13th, 2009, Samantha C said:

@ lampdevil– I’m glad I didn’t come off too wrong XD I definitely don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to look good. If I just lived in a time period where the things *I* thought looked good were in fashion, I’d be all over it!

I think I’d have the same reaction to a student who was obsessively hiring a tutor in order to ace every test and who would feel crushed by a single A-, or an athelete who spent thousands on a professional trainer if they didn’t have professional potential, just convincing themselves that it’s the only thing worthwhile. Fashion and looks just seem to be a more socially-acceptable area to obsess on. Nothing should ever be the sole focus of your life, and I find it very sad to hear about girls who have nothing but their looks to make themselves feel good. That’s closer to what I meant to say, I guess. It’s just depressing that we have a society that makes it so EASY to fall into that obsession, and rewards it.

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 7:13 pm

18 On July 13th, 2009, Literate Shrew said:

[Hannah] remembers. “I would be so depressed I wanted to see a therapist.”

Oh, I don’t know… how about spending all that money ON A THERAPIST!

Sorry, this just rubs me the wrong way because it doesn’t teach girls self esteem. It doesn’t teach them to develop their own sense of style or personality or anything! All this sort of thing does is validate the whole “women aren’t beautiful by themselves” mentality. We need to be teaching our teen girls to challenge this mentality, not to be completely consumed by it.

*sigh*

posted on July 13th, 2009 at 8:09 pm

19 On July 14th, 2009, Lexie Di said:

I think if I had an image consultant in high school (2 years ago), it would have hurt my self-esteem. I mean, by that time, I was already discovering Fat Acceptance and starting (very slowly) to love myself, so someone telling me what I should wear would just piss me off and make me feel like I’m not doing something right. I don’t think I would have wanted an image consultant unless they were going to follow me around and tell me how beautiful I was (and am). I’m not really a trendy person, either. I don’t like fads and the “in” things. I have my own style that was, for the most part, borne out of necessity, seeing as there were no “cool” clothes for fat girls.

Now, I’m less afraid than ever. Just today, I went to Torrid and put on a tan dress and black belt and danced around in front of the big mirror outside of the dressing room and told my mom that I should be a model. She says I’m weird for doing things like that but I can see that she’s proud of me.

It’s hard… so hard being a girl. Being subject to everyone’s scrutiny and comments. It’s harder, still, to be a fat girl, when most think it’s your fault you can’t fit into clothes. Girls need to do whatever they can to stay healthy, happy people.

posted on July 14th, 2009 at 2:17 am

20 On July 14th, 2009, meerkat said:

An image consultant would have annoyed me to no end, because I had no interest whatsoever in clothing or hairstyles. Maybe I’m not a girl at all! Or maybe I avoided thinking about my appearance because I could tell it would only lead to unbearable pain, since I failed so completely at not being fat and pimply.

posted on July 14th, 2009 at 3:31 am

21 On July 14th, 2009, Karen said:

As a teenager, I would have longed for this kind of help, although I may have been too embarrassed to ask my parents. I was a geek with geeky friends that I loved, but still wanted to be cool, too, and to have the pretty, popular girls want to talk to me. An image consultant probably could have made all the difference, there.

However, I think it would probably have gone to my head. I think that had I been popular, I would have become a snob and probably a much less pleasant person than I am now. (I’m not saying all popular and/or pretty girls are snobs, just that I think I personally would have gone that way.)

It could be miserable back then, at times, but in hindsight I know it made me who I am today, a person I really quite like, in part because I’ve learned to love myself for me as I am, warts and all. I can’t help wondering whether some of the girls who seek this kind of help will end up with shallower personalities and life experiences as a result.

posted on July 14th, 2009 at 9:13 am

22 On July 14th, 2009, Lyn said:

If someone had only told me to not poodle-perm my hair, my life as a teen would’ve been so much easier. And why didn’t my parents teach me skin care? I had terrible zits that cleared up completely once I got older and someone told me how to wash my face.

Clothes? Yeah, maybe some help with that too. I find it odd that boys do not have *nearly* the issues that girls do in high school. My sons just wear jeans or cargo pants and tees, and no one gives them any grief. They couldn’t care less what their buddy is wearing, either.

posted on July 14th, 2009 at 3:36 pm

23 On July 17th, 2009, merri said:

I would have loved one. But I never would have been able to afford one. if they were free, I certainly would have wanted to learn how to do my hair, plut on makeup, decide what matches what. Not neccesarily to get trends, but just the basics. Actually, I’d still like that now, at 30. Kinda like, maybe, a big sister sort of thing for girls who don’t have one. Or for girls who don’t get along with other girls and hang with guys. In college I worked with a girl who told me her high school was like a fashion competition every day. Scary! Fortunately mine wasn’t like that and most people wore jeans and flannel (I lived in a poor NH town). It was less fashion and style and more everything else that made kids (like me and others) outcasts or not.

posted on July 17th, 2009 at 8:34 pm