On Oct. 18, Sister to Sister organized the “Love Your Body Fashion Show” for West Chester students.
Sister to Sister is a peer mentor group made up of sisters from each sorority chapter, and their goal is to spread awareness of eating disorders. Through the “Love Your Body Fashion Show,” they had each model choose a body part that they loved to display.
Before the runway began, Sister to Sister presented a satirical video in regards to beauty commercials. The video began with a woman telling the audience that beauticians have now created a way to perfect women to look younger, tanner, healthier. And this is done through Adobé Photoshop, all you have to do is erase the mistake. Although light and humorous, the video was really empowering. Models and professional photographers use Photoshop to make their models and actresses perfect in the eyes of the public. But because women and teenagers don’t see this method of alteration first hand, we believe the products they sell to us and become a target of the beauty market.
After the video, Sarah Hittinger spoke a few words about her time dealing with an eating disorder. She described that she needed a lot of therapy and self-reflection and when she self-reflected, she realized that this is her body and that her body is her identity. But in order to appreciate her body, she needed to ask herself a series of questions. “When did I start to hate my body?”, “Why did it get like this?” And as she answered them, she found that there was nothing wrong with who she was and began to love the body parts that she picked apart. Hittinger is now getting married and absolutely loves being the size and shape she is.
As Hittinger left, the fashion show begun. Sisters from all chapters walked down the aisle, strutting their own loved body parts from their mouth to their hair and face all the way to their feet and curves. Cheering from all sections of the theatre brought a lot of energy to the show.
After the show, a short video was shown which warned people to be awareand embrace what they look like so they don’t fall deep into the pressure of beauty. And with that, the “Love Your Body Fashion Show” was complete.
Amy Shah is a first-year student majoring in computer science. She can be reached at AS793452@wcupa.edu.