Advertising often manipulates women into accepting unrealistic beauty standards by facilitating the various images transmitted through television, tabloids, and catalogs. We live in a society where women often compromise themselves by self-exploiting and subscribing to trending norms.

 

I spend a lot of time trying to understand my vulnerability to everyday media therefore my work involves identity and acceptance, value and empowerment. In Hair Couture I hope to explain that self worth is not achieved through consumer propaganda, and that self-acceptance is reached through a deepened understanding of self.  One of the social indicators of femininity is hair: cut, style, color, and particularly length -- as a society we place extreme value on length.  Women in particular spend copious amounts of money to maintain this symbol of their womanhood, and by default it becomes an accessory, such as diamond earrings or an engagement ring. Using hair as a jewelry medium  I am referencing the accessory like quality we confer it to. In combination with a catalog shooting style and display of my jewelry,  I am directly referencing the source of our society's unrealistic beauty standards. This notion became clear to me when my grandmother refused chemotherapy in fear of losing her hair – could it be her hair brought her a sense of womanhood, beauty and empowerment? Through Hair Couture, I hope to engage in a dialog about the value of hair as a commodity.