Notes on Empowerment

I was sitting in a nail salon in Anywhere, America recently when I overheard two grown women discussing how their friend would look "slutty" if she chose a certain shade of blue for her manicure.  Honest question: When did the color, length, or design of our manicure (really, any application of cosmetics) become a symbol of how experienced a woman is with sex?   

To begin with, answering these questions yields no reasonable answers, aside from squirmy revelations about how we view ourselves.  I could sit in This Chair and prescribe what she Should do with Her face and Her body and Her career all day long, but come no closer to truth or happiness.  

This conversation comes up a lot during styling consultations, but the script gets flipped.  It takes a lot of vulnerability and trust working with clients, and it's usually quite early when someone will set some hard boundaries around what they "can" and "cannot" wear.  Kelly was a NO to crop tops.  Mark insisted on cutting an arm off every designer shirt I brought him. I was thrilled when Kelly ended up choosing the Tibi crop we shot her in most of the day and when Mark agreed to the Double RL shirts (both sleeves in-tact) not because that's what I wanted, but because they looked phenomenal and their confidence radiated through the iconic photos we captured from those two very different shoots.  As a stylist, it's my greatest joy to see someone overcome a limitation they set for themselves - and fucking nail it.

I'm still curious about the conversation from the nail salon.  When I was traveling for my corporate job, I chose classic nail colors to avoid looking too youthful or unprofessional - in short, to improve my chances of being taken seriously.  These days when I'm invited to the office, I feel comfortable balancing a nail that pops with color-blocked basics or pared-down neutrals.  I wonder when those women said "slutty," were they using it interchangeably with other words that typically undermine women in the workplace?  I have so many questions, but instead remained a hostage and very uncomfortable eavesdropper.

Ultimately, how we talk about others is reflective of how we feel about ourselves. Being able to sit with that discomfort, even get curious about it, and try a different approach is the path to discovery.  I have some very pretty pictures to prove it.

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