Glossed Over

InStyle Makeover: Rita Hayworth's Ethnic Makeover Was "Worth It"

When I meet someone new and tell them about this blog, the responses I get usually fall into two categories. Most often I hear, “Oh! Totally! I stopped reading those magazines years ago.” And sometimes I get, “Well...what kinds of things do you write about, exactly?”

From now on, when someone asks the latter, I’m just going to hand them “The Hollywood Hot Machine” from InStyle Makeover’s September issue. This single page manages to include pretty much everything that’s wrong with women’s magazines: obsession with the male gaze, extreme beauty regimens, impossibly strict diets, and a dash of shocking ignorance. Handy!

The article features six actresses who’ve made major adjustments to their appearances to launch their showbiz careers. We aren’t talking about going from a side part to a middle part here, you know? If the fact that these women had to dramatically change their hair, faces, bodies and even their names--or at least felt they had to--isn’t maddening enough for you, maybe you’ll hate the breezy tone InStyle uses to describe their transformations. I sure did!

For instance, the article says Joan Crawford (née Lucille LeSueur) used “rigorous diet and exercise” to become “sleek.”

Reportedly, she even chewed gum in an attempt to sharpen her jawline.

Apparently no celebrity plastic surgeons were available to comment on the merits of Orbit as a cosmetic technique. Try it at home, readers!

The article goes on to mention haircuts and wardrobe changes for Marilyn Monroe and Diana Ross, and says of Jane Fonda:

Fonda’s first husband, Roger Vadim, directed her schoolgirl-to-sex-kitten makeover. He’d done the same for previous wife Brigitte Bardot.

And a man habitually directing his wives into “sex kitten” makeovers isn’t creepy or predatory at all!

Oh, and what about Jennifer Aniston?

Yoga, hairstylist Chris McMillan, and a salad for lunch almost every day for 10 years helped Aniston morph into this honey-dipped goddess.

So we again have a man to thank. And of course there’s that salad-a-day for a decade thing. Is that a healthy diet, a reasonable approach to eating, or just something Aniston’s publicist made up? Who cares? The real message here is that she’s whippet-thin, as anyone who’s seen her wearing scanty underthings in Horrible Bosses can tell you. 

But I’ve reserved the bulk of my outrage for the Rita Hayworth entry, which reads:

Painful but worth it: In two years, Margarita Cansino raised her hairline almost an inch with electrolysis. And when she went red, a star was born.

“Painful but worth it”? WHAT THE HELL. Do InStyle’s offices not have access to Wikipedia? I have to assume that’s the case, because obviously no one at the magazine knows why Hayworth had that electrolysis: at the behest of Columbia Pictures, to make her appearance less Hispanic and therefore more marketable. That’s also why she dyed her hair red and bleached her skin. 

(Incidentally, that second link has a context-sensitive ad for a skin-lightening treatment that reads “InStyle Award Winner!” Wow.) 

Celebrities change their appearances for all kinds of reasons, but praising a racially motivated, excrutiatingly painful cosmetic procedure as “worth it” is, at best, insensitive. (And at worst? I really don’t want to break out the “r” word.) Did Hayworth look better than Cansino did? That’s subjective. But there are some ugly, ugly implications attached to glorifying a makeover designed to hide Hayworth’s heritage. I mean, what’s the reader takeaway supposed to be here? That everyone looks better as a white person? That the agony Hayworth must have gone through was “worth it” to not look Hispanic?

This is tricky territory, and InStyle could have provided context or sidestepped those implications entirely. But they didn’t, and that’s the problem. Articles like this propagate the idea that beauty is pain--and that beauty is determined by men, and it requires expensive, painful treatments, and it demands extreme, restrictive diets, and that only certain kinds of women (namely thin white women) are beautiful. Perhaps expecting InStyle Makeover to acknowledge as much is ridiculous. 

Still, it’s been more than 80 years since the picture of Lucille LeSueur on this page was taken. Eighty years after LeSueur tried to reshape her face by chewing gum, and Jennifer Aniston eats arugula every day. Eighty years. That’s a long time for so little to have changed.

There's Nothing Sexy About InStyle's "Look Better Naked"

Many many years ago, I briefly dated a guy who was, well, not particularly nice.  Watching a movie at his place one afternoon, he leaned in for a kiss. (Mom and Dad, avert your eyes here.) Matters progressed, he tugged the hem of my t-shirt over my head, and then he rolled his eyes at my basic beige bra. “Don’t you have any sexy underwear?” he asked.

All I could think was: Dude, I’m taking my clothes off for you. How is that not enough?

Therein lies the problem with February’s glut of lingerie and look-better-naked stories: they’re so focused on an artificial construct of romance that they miss the point. If, as magazines often say, feeling sexy means feeling comfortable in your own skin, then endless articles exhorting the virtues of self-tanners, lacy knickers, and styling products aren't exactly conducive to developing that self-confidence.

And that’s what makes InStyle’s “10 Ways to Look Better Naked” so utterly ludicrous. Among their suggestions:

• Weight loss

Got 30 minutes and $85 to spend on detoxifying salts? Great!

We shed 3 inches of water weight and felt thinner for about 48 hours.

And you can keep those inches off, too, provided you don’t do anything outlandish like, say, eat or drink. People don’t typically go to romantic restaurants on Valentine’s Day, do they?

• Jewelry

The magazine suggests highlighting your back, which it calls “a very sexy region of the body.” The best way to do that? With an $850 gemstone-studded lariat chain, obviously. Without pricey jewels pointing the way, how would a man know what to focus on?

• Home décor

“Amber casts skin in a warm, rosy glow,” says [interior designer Ron] Woodson, who suggests placing a red-hued bulb in bedside lamps and painting your ceiling a barely there shade of peach or pink to enhance the effect.

Painting the ceiling? Painting the ceiling! That seems excessively vain, but at least they didn’t suggest installing a mirror up there.

Of course, the article also covers the usual territory of depilation, exfoliation, and cosmetic trickery to hide any traces of humanity blemishes and bruises. But unless you’re disrobing for a sculptor who’ll immortalize your every detail in marble, isn’t this overkill? There’s probably a 3,000-word essay here about treating women like objects and the deleterious effects of porn and how the media tries to define our sexuality, but I’ll just leave it at this:

If you’re naked and your partner dares frown at your white ceiling or a stray stretch mark, your relationship is way beyond InStyle’s help. Also, you’re probably dating my ex-boyfriend.

InStyle Makeover Needs a Makeover of Its Own

As I discovered this weekend, InStyle Makeover and Taco Bell are remarkably similar. They're both cheap and require a very strong gag reflex. 

What was it about this special issue that was so hard to swallow? Was it the $600 cosmetic case? The fact that some no-doubt-underpaid editorial assistant had to conceptualize the ways in which a purse can camouflage a “flawed” figure? Or that every woman made over in this issue didn’t really need a makeover?

Impossible beauty standards, you win again! And we lose.

Take a look at Vanessa Hudgens, who was given an “undone” makeover. This was the result:

According to InStyle, this is a “polished no-makeup look.” Don’t you roll out of bed sporting fake eyelashes and the exact right shade of nude lipstick? With a professional hairstylist and makeup artist at your disposal, this natural look is so easy to achieve!

A few pages later, “Plump + Go” features someone who actually isn’t wearing makeup. That’s because she’s a model preparing to be injected with four different substances—Botox, Perlane, Cosmoderm, and Restylane. So there are at least four reasons none of us look anything like the women we see in magazines.

Continuing the trend of making over people who don’t really need making over, “6 Weeks to Slim” pairs two magazine staffers with trainers who, naturally, impose ultra-strict quasi-scientific edicts. Do they lose weight? Yes. Did they need to lose it in the first place? Nope! Both have BMIs within the normal range.

Admittedly, the BMI is a flawed calculation. Fine. But this depiction of two slim women getting slimmer alongside a “Dress Yourself Thin” coverline and a food diary from manicurist Ji Baek, whose diet consists largely of champagne—it all sends a powerful message about our bodies.

It says that our bodies aren’t ours—they’re open for public comment. That they don’t exist for our pleasure or strength but instead that they are a source of shame. That starvation and sacrifice are the path to self-satisfaction.

As long as our bodies and faces belong not to us but to an ever-changing, ever-more-impossible standard, women will be going to war with themselves.

Wouldn’t it be a pleasant surprise to see a magazine emphasize being healthy and strong instead of slender and young? Wouldn’t it be great to see a magazine stop referring to “boyish” figures, as if those women somehow aren’t female enough, and stop altogether ignoring larger women? Wouldn't it be a positive change to see a fashion spread focus on flattery instead of camouflage?

Absolutely. But I’m not holding my breath. To accomplish anything other than selling insecurity, InStyle Makeover would need a makeover of its own.

InStyle's Relationship Rule: Clothes Make the Man

Ah, it’s February, the season of love and romance! It must be time for yet another article telling us eager women how to dress to please our men! How else will we prove our love?

Of course, no one wants to come across as promoting ideas from the Stone Age, so any magazine worth its faux-feminist salt won’t hesitate to preface its article with a declaration that relationship-related fashion rules don’t really matter…thus freeing them to detail an increasingly ridiculous, impossible-to-fulfill list of directives for dressing to seduce.

And that’s exactly what InStyle does in February’s “Dating Rituals”! It kicks off with this:

There are absolutely no rules when it comes to looking hot

Which isn’t a bad start, except that there are actual rules cribbed from The Man Plan (yes, it is a real book) at the bottom of each page of the story.

First, a cliché:

Men are attracted to power. And self-confidence is the most powerful thing.

Do I even need to explain the inherent contradiction in prescribing specific outfits to delight the typical male’s oh-so-discriminating eye for fashion while simultaneously touting the virtue and power of self-confidence?

Oh, and speaking of clichés, did you know that men and women enjoy different movies?

Casey says, “These fall halfway between chick flick and ‘I’ll still be a guy to all of my guy friends if they find out I saw it’—When Harry Met Sally, Wedding Crashers, Jerry Maguire, Bull Durham and the always classic Casablanca.”

Well! Someone hasn't seen Wedding Crashers!

Next:

“When a man feels he is in a place that’s comfortable—a woman’s home that has things he can relate to—he feels a closer bond to her. But when she overdoes it with the feminine accents, his impulse is to move out and move on,” Casey says.

So arranging your wardrobe to suit him isn’t enough—your décor has to please him, too! Here’s a novel idea: why not develop relationships with men who appreciate the way you choose to dress and decorate?

They’ve saved the most stereotype-riddled rule for last:

“No matter what his backstory is, never comment on the quarterback’s cute backside,” says Casey. “Do you want him commenting on the cheerleader’s cute ‘L.A. face and Oakland booty’?”

Do you want to feel secure enough in your relationship that the two of you can benignly discuss the attractiveness of people you'll never meet? More importantly, do you want to date a man who quotes Sir Mix-a-lot with a straight face?

Fortunately, Instyle does offer one surefire way for the average woman to compete with a professional cheerleader: a $335 mini! It's practically a bargain when you consider the attention that'll accompany the purchase!

In case all this gender-based wardrobe advice isn’t enough, the magazine follows “Dating Rituals” with the essay “He Says, She Wears,” wherein the author lets her husband choose her clothes for a week. Given InStyle's emphasis on making wardrobe choices with men in mind, I don’t think I need to tell you how that ends.

An InStyle Assessment of Purchasing Priorities

This appears on page 246 of the December issue of InStyle:

Thanks, InStyle! Like so many women across the nation, I was only driving to work because I was completely ignorant that I could trade my gas money for a fancy potion from Saks! It had nothing to do with the fact that there is no other way to get to my office! How can we former car commuters ever pay you back for pointing out that we should be taking public transport? Preventing potential wrinkles clearly trumps any other concern.

Next month, InStyle answers whether you should buy a month’s worth of groceries or a new jar of eye cream. Hint: Obviously, the eye cream. They think you’ll look much better after eating nothing but whatever dented canned goods you can manage with the change you find on the sidewalk. A bout with food poisoning is a very effective weight loss method!

We Read It So You Don't Have To: Instyle's Indoctrinations in the Strange Ways of "Chiconomics"

It was inevitable: in the November issue, InStyle has at last graced us readers with its guide to living fashionably in these hardscrabble times. How do fashion mags try to convince us we're being thrifty while still urging us to purchase an entire new wardrobe every season?

These articles (and I've now read approximately 600 of them) tend to take one of three directions. They’re either:

a. A tone-deaf compilation of reasonably priced stuff. Hint to magazines: If I’m shopping for a $35 sweater, I’m not buying a $100 bracelet to wear with it.

b. A showcase of stuff that isn’t at all cheap paired with extensive justifications of why it’s still a good value—or pretty much every page in Bazaar

c. Further evidence of magazines’ utter estrangement from the real world

InStyle’s entry into this category, “The Laws of Chiconomics,” is an unholy mélange of the three. (Also, “chiconomics”? What, “recessionista” wasn’t obnoxious enough?) The article offers eight rules for smart shopping, and below, I’ve singled out the most egregious of their instructions.

There’s a two-page abomination called “The Red Shoe Diaries,” wherein the author embarks on an oh-so-relatable quest to find the “perfect” pair of Louboutins for less than $200. Nothing is more fascinating than reading about someone else shopping for shoes! 

I’ll spare you the suspense—you must be in knots wondering whether she found the red-soled objects of her consumer lust—and skip right to the end.

And it was there, in the wedges queue, that I fell hard, vanquished by a pair of black suede mary jane platforms with a silver wedge—part schoolgirl, part vixen and utterly breathtaking. Trouble was, even at half off, they were still $410. That may qualify as a steal in the Louboutin universe, but it was double my target price. Sold!

What compelled InStyle to consider this a lesson in bargain-hunting I can’t say—apparently, relentless worship of designer goods is an outstanding way to economize! As if the cognitive dissonance caused by hunting for Louboutins in a time of fiscal crisis isn’t enough, this is the conclusion the article draws:

The point of a budget, like a diet, is not just to stick to it most of the time, but to make sure that when you don’t, your splurge is really worth it.

Living frugally is so easy! Just disregard your budget entirely if there's something you really want!

Then there’s a quiz, “What’s the Real Price?,” to determine whether an item is actually worth its price tag. It’s an interesting idea, decently executed—until the scoring key, that is. InStyle offers two ways to determine your score:

For the numbers wiz

And

If math isn’t your thing

Apparently, being a “numbers wiz” equates to earning a passing mark from eighth-grade math, because it requires you to calculate incredibly complex percentages like, say, 60% of $500. And I was naïve enough to question my math teachers about whether I’d actually use their lessons in real life!

In any case, shouldn’t an article that assumes a reader’s interest in the economy, discounts, and budgets assume that same reader has a basic competency in arithmetic?

But the real fun comes with “The Super-Luxe Bag Pricing Index,” which helpfully enumerates all the other things you could buy instead of a $31,000 “extremely limited edition Chanel bag…handmade from incredibly rare large-scaled alligator.” This spread unleashes some real dilemmas for the bargain shopper—is it better to drop 30 large on one purse or on 81,036 organic eggs or on 25 years of monthly flower deliveries? Or would it be a better investment for me to spend $31,000 on 8.6 years of health insurance? What a quandary!

Strangely, there's no mention of what can be purchased with $3.99 other than a copy of InStyle. Next month, I just might figure that out.

InStyle's Insane Ideas About Women's Bodies

In “What’s Age Got to Do with It?” (InStyle, October), a survey conducted by the magazine reveals a wealth of terribly predictable stats. Readers think Demi Moore and Helen Mirren look great for their age! Forty percent of 20-year-olds use anti-wrinkle creams! (This is not news to anyone who has ever read a women’s magazine.) And 68 percent of women surveyed proclaim that they are not afraid of aging. Of course they aren’t!

I, however, am a bit fearful about the implications of this particular statistic:

8 out of 10 think their legs aren’t perfect, but still wear skirts [emphasis mine]

“But”? Why would they say that? Oh, I get it! The subtext is that women without “perfect” limbs should stay covered at all times. No one told me I was committing a fashion faux pas by baring my legs in a knee-length skirt! What have I been thinking, unleashing my size-10 calves on an unsuspecting public?

Of course, InStyle may not be the most discerning judge of which bodies are worthy of revealing. Take a gander at the models they use to illustrate the story “Fit to Be Tried,” about jeans that solve figure challenges.

These women, from left to right, are modeling jeans that solve “tummy” (as if the mere existence of one is a flaw), “love handles,” “boyish figure,” and “large hips.” The featured jeans must be miracle workers, because I don’t see a trace of those “problems” on any of these women.

Next up, these models are grappling with a “big behind,” “flat bottom,” “saggy butt,” and “full figure.” InStyle helpfully notes that the “full figure” jeans come in plus sizes—even if models apparently don’t!

 

Then there’s Instyle’s version of “tall & slim,” “petite & slim,” “tall & curvy,” and “petite & curvy.” I won’t be purchasing any of these styles either, because if that extra bit of hip is what makes a woman “curvy,” then I’m spherical in comparison to these models.

Where did we get this idea that clothes should camouflage rather than compliment our shapes? I’m feeling the urge to subvert this ludicrous standard. Forget squeezing into Spanx, forget wearing head-to-toe black, forget anything designed to mask my so-called flaws. Anyone know where I can get a pair of fabulous hot pants?

Related: Girl With a Satchel has a terrific post about the media’s obsession with women’s bodies.

Women's Magazines Still Waging War on Our Wallets

I know, I know, money has become a regular topic around here. Here’s my pledge: I promise I’ll quit ranting about it as soon as the fashion magazines stop conflating luxury goods with sound investments. (So, probably never.)

Here’s the latest communiqué in the battle to separate women from their cash, from the “Editor’s Note” in September’s InStyle:

And yet there’s that tiny voice—OK, it’s a booming foghorn—in the back of your head telling you now’s not the time to shop. The economy seems dicey, at best, and any fiscally savvy woman worth her mutual funds (bad example, but go with me) knows that the sensible thing to do is bank that money for the inevitable rainy day. Or is it? After all, you don’t have to make all the trends your own, only the ones that work for you.

Oh, so I’ve been getting it all wrong! Buying a closetful of stuff you don’t need is profligate, but buying just a few things you don’t need is as good as earning interest.

I’m not saying women shouldn’t spend their money as they please on shiny consumer goods. (I certainly do!) But trying to pass off the purchase of luxury goods as financially prudent behavior is an untenable position—not to mention more than a little patronizing. It's more important to look on-trend now than to have an adequate nest egg? Really, InStyle? I need a pencil skirt more than I need those “rainy day” funds?

Apparently so! In the table of contents, they chirp that a $1,950 Prada bag is “worth it!”

Sigh. And over on Marie Claire’s “Diary of an MC Fashionista,” they helpfully deconstruct the appeal of ostrich skin.

Here’s why to invest in this hard-wearing luxury instead! (Hint: It lasts 30 years)

Well, there is an upside to buying ostrich: it’ll endure as long as the Visa bills do! (Slight exaggeration: If you charge Marie Claire’s recommended $6,500 Bottega Veneta bag and make minimum payments at 11% interest, that bag will be yours in just 25 years.)

And now, we can talk about something else, like how Jessica Simpson appears to be posing for her 11th grade yearbook portrait on the cover of Lucky. Is it just me?

The Language of Magazines: Is "Curvy" Completely Meaningless?

I should have known the term “curvy” was on the fast track to obsolescence when Marie Claire used the slender-but-busty Katherine Heigl as an exemplar of the body type. What makes a woman curvy? It used to be the word was bestowed upon those lovely women who, nonetheless, were heavier than the Hollywood-lollipop standard. Now? The definition has loosened. It seems any celeb who hasn’t retained Rachel Zoe as her stylist could one day be worthy of the term.

That’s not to say that celebrities—or anyone else—should be shunted into an easily definable body-type box. And fashion magazines should absolutely not be arbiters of what any woman should look like. Even so, is the pressure to be slim increased by expanding the definition of “curvy” to include slender women? Are women with different, heavier bodies being squeezed out by the broader definition of the term that once belonged to them? Does it even matter?

Decide for yourself. Here are three women who’ve recently been dubbed “curvy” by magazines.

Jessica Biel and her “curvy figure” in August’s Bazaar:

Kim Raver has “serious curves” in September’s Glamour:

And Anna Faris has a “curvy bod” in the fall edition of InStyle Makeover:

What do you think?

InStyle Just Saved Me $64,705

In the August issue, “Where Can I Find…” answers the burning question of where Eva Longoria shops. Here’s one element of her look:

Oh, thanks, InStyle! I totally would have spent $65,000 in the vain hope of accessorizing just like Eva Longoria if you hadn’t alerted me to the possibility of spending less. I’ll just put my black Amex away now.