Discovering your outer teapot

I recently met a budding writer named Adeena Gerding at a South African book fair. She was barefoot and clutching a brass teapot.

Normally I might have ignored her shoelessness as she rummaged through tables filled with novels, but I couldn’t overlook her teapot.

It turns out she doesn’t own a regular handbag (she understands the necessity but they’re just not for her) but instead uses her antique tea dispenser, which she assured me was quite roomy.

I was thoroughly impressed by Gerding for I felt she was not only making a statement about herself and her personal identity, but about all members of the human race, most especially women.

Her teapot, to me, seemed to be a larger statement daring others to claim ownership of their “I”dentity.

We live in a world where media has great power over how we humans define body image and what is and isn’t an appropriate way to present ourselves via our apparel. Our identity becomes something that is more about what popular culture has concocted for us and less about who we really are.

Every day we are bombarded with advertisements and images telling us what we should wear, how we should look and what we “need” to own. We are told that the reflection we see when we look in the mirror is ugly and needs to change.

We are encouraged to emulate celebrities and television characters such as Carrie Bradshaw from the American series Sex and the City. We are persuaded to buy very expensive and extremely painful shoes with thin heels.

I am personally guilty of buying such ridiculously high shoes which I almost never wear. I often wonder if I really do find them pretty or if I have just been brainwashed to think they are.

And don’t forget the handbags.

We are convinced to spend hundreds, if not thousands, on ridiculously small bags which barely fit our mobile phone but then, six months later, we run the risk of seeing a photograph of the same bag in a fashion magazine under a big bold headline that reads: “Fashion don’ts”.

We all know that if the universe has two constants they are ageing and death and yet we have grown women paying for innumerable cosmetic surgeries because they don’t want to look their age. We see anti-wrinkle, anti-cellulite and anti-stretch mark creams flying off the shelves because these oh-so-natural occurrences have been deemed ugly by someone – most likely a very smart businessman who is now cashing in on society’s vanity.

We even have self-professed feminists like Oprah Winfrey pumping out “makeover” episodes on her hugely influential television talk show, where she invites stylists, hairdressers and make-up artists to come and tell her studio and TV audience how they should look.

It would not be so bad if this nonsense was restricted to Winfrey’s audience, who made the choice to sit through these painstakingly staged advertisements for big business, but it isn’t.

This type of advert preys on average people, much like the fashion magazines that send photographers to surreptitiously take shots of people going about their business and then print stories attacking them for their appearance.

These “Oprah” stylists call themselves the “fashion police” and go out into the streets to stop unsuspecting prey who are then referred to as “fashion victims” and given unsolicited advice about what is “wrong” with their outfits and what they need to do to “fix” their appearance.

This is then transferred into our personal lives. I’m sure most people can think of a friend, family member or a colleague who has taken up the mantle of fashion police officer to their friends and relatives – and even sometimes people they barely know.

What we never stop to question is whether what we base our judgement on regarding our appearance is based on our “I”dentity, or on what has been drummed into our heads by the gurus and fundis who really only give advice because they are paid to sell things, be it a product or an image.

If we are really honest, I think most us would be left with a vacant space in our brain if we took away other people’s opinions on body images and fashion. Very few of us consult the “I” in our identity when we admire, purchase or wear an item of clothing, an accessory or a fashion product. People like Gerding, who is aware of trends and could easily subscribe to them, instead chose to go with her “I”, however unconventional the result.

A lot of people go against the “I” because they find it easier to go with the tide and not be the person who stands out and is subsequently beaten down. Paulo Coelho wrote it best in his book The Winner Stands Alone: “‘Fashion’ is merely a way of saying: ‘I belong to your world. I am wearing the same uniform as your army, so don’t shoot'”.

Maybe we should take up Gerding’s unspoken challenge and remove the uniforms society has placed on us. If we all spend a little more time listening to the inner “I” of our identity, we can surely also more easily discover our outer teapot.

Doreen Gaura is a Zimbabwean writer based in Cape Town. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.

Download : Photo by Doreen Gaura