THIS is my favourite image on Pinterest so far. This is my favourite image in related to the word I've been given, gleam. Surprisingly or not, it's not a fashion image. Neither a make-up one. It's a picture that inspires me because I am emotionally touched by it. Because I am inspired by the beauty of the world, of the nature. Because I have memories like that. Wonderful starry nights in the summer, camping on the seashore. Stormy nights, cuddling under the blankets and listening the restless waves crashing a few meters away from us. Salted sprinkles of the Black Sea on our tent. Campfire in front of our tent to warm us along with a bottle of red wine. Nights of love. Mornings of wonder. Days of summer. Home.
The view of the sky at night that I will never forget and that will live within me and within what I create.
Now she knows her hair is beautiful. Because Dove told her so?
This is a deep researched advertising campaign known globally for its multitude of reactions. This is an emotive advertising campaign, based on women's insecurities about how they look and therefore about how they feel about themselves. But why the way you look has to have such a big impact of how you feel about yourself and how you determine your worth? Why not conforming to imposed social standards has to affect us that much, and when I mean us, I mean women. I haven't seen this advert markeded to men, like men don't have this type of issues about how they "should" look or act or feel. It is marketed to women, like women have to be defined as beautiful on whatever form that is. It is very look-focused and it makes women think that no other quality they might have it is so important as being beautiful. In my oppinion, Dove's campaign is a double-edged sword. On other hand, they want to make women accept and feel beautiful the way they are and open their eyes about the unrealistic standards of beauty imposed nowadays, but on the other hand, it attracts the attention on one big thing: physical beauty. Like if we don't feel that we look beautiful, we aren't being "real". Like being beautiful is a thing that every woman should be. I just can't really explain how I feel about this advert as I can't easily find the perfect words to describe it in English language. But I've did some research about what other experts have concluded regarding Dove's campaign and I found some pretty interesting things that captured my attention.
"This consumer brand knows how to hit our sore spots (excuse the pun). A classic beauty brand which started in 1957 as a bar of soap in the US, Dove is now an iconic family name. Dove’s Real Beauty campaign has consisted of a range of powerful videos and images, based on a research project, with the aim of making women feel good about themselves."
"What’s your initial reaction from watching this video? For most people it’s a positive one - whether you’re a female, male, young or old, it’s hard not to feel emotional watching these women realize that the Beauty Patch was just a placebo. It sends an empowering message that beauty and body confidence is all about state of mind: not magic patches, pills or potions. The women in the video echo this sentiment, describing the process as a "life-changing experience". (Telegraph)"
"However there has been (an equally emotional) negative reaction, with some people claiming that this ‘trick’ is insulting to women. Laura Stampler at Time magazine writes:
“It makes women seem too gullible, too desperate, and overall helpless against the all-knowing master manipulators at Unilever.” (Time)
Steve Miles, Unilever's senior VP-Dove, said in a statement that Dove created the "Patches" video "to intentionally provoke a debate about women's relationship with beauty" given that 80% of women feel anxious about how they look and only 4% consider themselves beautiful. (AdAge)"
"Whether you find this video heart-warming or demeaning, or see it simply as a see-through marketing stunt, there’s no denying it has hit off. In under a week the video has received almost 13 million views from Dove’s Youtube channel alone. Unilever’s social media tracking has found a 92% positive sentiment globally. (AdAge)
With the Real Beauty campaign, Dove have been tapping into current issues of self-confidence and body image ideals that are prevalent in today’s Western society. Yes, ultimately Dove is a brand that sells products, and no matter how many lumps in throats these advertisements cause, we all know it’s a selling tactic. But they are doing it brilliantly - their research has given them real insight into their market and they have created emotional advertising that has got us all talking." (Subscribe to Blog 2014)
"What message is the new Dove ad really sending to our daughters?
No advertising campaign aimed at men would ever feature doorways marked 'Handsome' and 'Average', says Judith Woods
In the new Dove advert, which this week went viral on social media, there are two large signs over the entrance doors at what look like airports in different countries.
One reads “Beautiful” the other reads “Average”. A camera records the reactions of real women as they draw near.
Some are confused, one backs away and retreats entirely, others stride forward. Most walk through the door marked “Average”.
But, interestingly, the women with teenagers chivvy, drag and physically push their diffident daughters through the “Beautiful” door.
It’s life-affirming, it’s instinctive, it’s the most natural, nurturing thing in the world. I would do the same. Of course I would."
"As mothers, we see what our girls don’t – not just beauty, but boundless potential. We want them to be a better version of us, to seize every opportunity and not be held back by those impalpable yet powerful forces that we, with the benefit of age and wisdom, have overcome.
It’s far from easy to convey to an awkward, coltish teenage girl that her feelings of embarrassment, her lack of self confidence, her fear of failing and reluctance to stand out from the crowd are all in the mind.
And the harsh reality is that even if we do manage to infuse them with high self-esteem and ambition, and convince them that women and men are equal, the chances are we will be selling them a lie.
The bitter truth is that even today, in 2015, high-ranking female managers remain a rarity. And far from creating a snowball effect that increases the numbers of women in business, the presence of one woman in a top-tier job halves the chances of a second woman landing a high ranking position at the same firm.
According to the US-based research published in the Strategic Management Journal, the “Queen Bee” theory commonly – pejoratively – used to explain why women don’t appear to promote other women is a myth.
Women who’ve climbed to the top don’t pull the ladder up behind them because they feel threatened by rivals. It is men who decide that having one woman in senior management is enough to satisfy the demands of diversity, resulting in a situation where women in the US make up nearly half the workforce, yet just 8.7 per cent of top managers are female.
Here in the UK, the figures are less dramatic, according to the Office of National Statistics, 32 per cent of managers are women. But these are invariably at a junior level: just 15.6 per cent of directorships on the FTSE 100 are women.
Yes, women do very often take time out to have children and, arguably, there’s a price to be paid for leaving the workforce for a while.
But it’s iniquitous and wholly disproportionate to consequently suffer a lifetime earnings gap of £423,000 compared to men on a similar career path.
There are, of course, high-profile women who have forged careers in previously male bastions of business, and all credit to them. But whenever there’s a business initiative being launched, it’s always the same faces who appear, the same names who are mentioned – Baroness Brady, Dame Marjorie Scardino of Pearson Group, former dotcom-er Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho.
Some years ago I interviewed Melinda Gates, philanthropist wife of Microsoft founder Bill, who dryly noted that any time any board in the US need a woman to make up numbers, they always want Hillary Clinton.
“Men only want exceptional, off-the-scale women, but they’re quite happy to hire men of indifferent ability,” she told me. “As soon as they stop asking for Hillary, we’ll be halfway to achieving real equality.”
In the meantime, it’s down to us as the mothers of daughters and sons – perhaps especially sons – to bring our children up with the will to effect change and the resilience to cast aside meaningless gender barriers and establish a genuine meritocracy.
But we must always remember that while men and women are indisputably equal, they are not the same.
For a start, no male-orientated advertising campaign would ever feature doorways marked “Handsome” and “Average”.
Assuming that any of the men even noticed the sign, they would stride through “Handsome” without giving it a second’s thought. Every last one. Even Jeremy Clarkson.
Would Hillary Clinton walk through the “Beautiful” door? I’d like to think so.
But my abiding hope is that, in the future, if my daughters ever see actual or metaphorical signs like these, they won’t panic or have a personal crisis. Instead, they’ll simply climb up, pull them down and nonchalantly trample them underfoot as they continue on their way."(Woods 2015)
References:
Subscribe to Blog (2014) Available at: http://coull.com/our-blog/emotive-advertising-dove-real-beauty-campaign (Accessed: 9 February 2016).
Woods, J. (2015) What message is the new dove ad really sending to our daughters? Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/11527019/What-message-is-the-new-Dove-ad-really-sending-to-our-daughters.html (Accessed: 9 February 2016).
Bachesta, M. (2015) ‘The power of putting the human story First’, 25 March. Available at: http://causeconsulting.com/2015/03/power-putting-human-story/ (Accessed: 9 February 2016).
Ok so this is my third try of the word moodboard. I really want to create something special and I've finally decided about which idea is best. I've opted to continue developing the idea with the galaxy bodypaint. The thinking behind this idea is that the galaxy is full of gleaming stars. And my model is going to shine like the infinite stars in the galaxy. And she will be a glitterbomb. Amen.
The idea beneath the quotes "Stars can't shine without darkness" and "The darkest nights produce the brightest stars" will be simplified and understood literally. I'm going to translate that into the lighting setup for my photoshoot which will be very dark, very low key, just like in the pose with neon lights that is in the left down corner or in the shot with the woman covered in dark glitter from the right upper corner. The right upper corner woman in dark glitter is also an example of pose for my model, and another pose example are the two pictures in the middle-to-left corner with the woman in black make-up with her hands on her face or the woman with blonde hair and sequins in her hair. Speaking about sequins in hair, let's explain the make-up design.
First of all, I want to experiment with bodypaint. That means that I have to find a model willing to pose half-naked, which will be a real challenge for me considering that I only have like 2 friends and 3 acquintances here in Southampton. But I will see. If I don't find anyone then I will be forced to update my design.
Secondly, I will paint her all black and then paint a galaxy on her with supracolour/aquacolour or bodypaint or directly with glitter. I didn't think yet of the make-up application but I will develop this in another blog post. She will either have lots of glitter like rivers of tears underneath her eyes, that will be combined with the glitter on the body, which symbolise two falling stars and the stardust from their tails, either have her hair and her whole head covered in silver/gold glitter and I will make her head appear like a massive falling star with tail that will fuse with the rest of the stars painted on her body. That's the first idea. More to come.
I had to completely change the moodboard I did at first because after the crit feedback everything changed in my mind. I've taken into consideration the advices from my colleagues regarding my layout, and I think that I've simplified it a bit, even though I used more pictures than last time. I've incorporated inspiration from diamonds, gems, dragonflyes, glitter, mermaid tails, the gleaming moon at night, the galaxy and the sky at night, gobo lighting, fashion glitter make-up and fashion poses like the one with water-like textue. I have two ideas and I need to decide which one to keep. The first idea is to do bodypainting with metallic colours, mermaid colurs and to sprinkle with glitter and gems on the chest to cover the breasts, but I have to find a model that would accept to pose half-naked (or let's say dressed in a gleaming metallic make-up shirt). And the second idea is to go with the galaxy bodypaint in metallic colours AND glitter as stars (this one is really hard to explain, I have to draw a facechart for it in order to be easy to understand by other people, because I am just not very good at explaining what I have in my mind.)
I need to think more about it and eventually decide on which idea I will go for.
So here's the feedback obtained after the presentation of the moodboard above:
As I was presenting the moodboard, there was a click in my mind when I looked more at the image with the green and purple metallic dress. I thought about something beautiful in the nature that gleams, such as the galaxy and the stars at night, or at fish skins, or mermaid tails that shine. I kept presenting and included that and people seemed to like the idea and I will research more images of this kind, because to me it seems less obvious than the images I have presented so far and a better idea.
What I have also understood from the feedback is that the moodboards I make should be less makeup-focused and instead I should look to include more textures instead of already made works of other artists. Also, I should change a bit the layout of my moodboard to be more easily to interpret and that I should include some typography as well. I am not a big fan of typographynin moodboards but maybe that will improve them so it's definitely worth a try.
Some other images I could look up to for my future moodboards are images about: dragonflyes, galaxy, fishes, nature pictures, wet cobwebs, jellyfishes.
