#create inclusivity and be a true role model for younger generations

[robertsbarbie]

my toxic trait is everything i see about the barbie movie just boils my blood and i want everyone else to be a hater with me

[keldamuzik-weartamz]

Keldamuzik is the Voice for Black Females: Beyond Hip-Hop and Entertainment

In the world of hip-hop and entertainment, where voices often blend and sometimes get lost in the crowd, Keldamuzik stands out as a powerful and influential figure. More than just an artist, Keldamuzik is a trailblazer and a voice for Black females, using her platform to advocate for empowerment, representation, and change. Here’s why Keldamuzik is more than just a name in music; she is a beacon for Black women across various spheres.

Breaking Stereotypes and Redefining Narratives

Authentic Representation

Keldamuzik’s journey in the music industry has been marked by authenticity and resilience. She challenges the stereotypical images often portrayed in mainstream media about Black women, offering instead a narrative that is rich, diverse, and multifaceted. By embracing her true self and sharing her story, Keldamuzik provides a relatable and aspirational figure for Black women everywhere.

Empowering Messages

Her music and public persona are imbued with messages of empowerment, self-love, and resilience. Keldamuzik’s lyrics often touch on themes of overcoming adversity, embracing one’s identity, and striving for excellence. These messages resonate deeply with Black females, who often face unique challenges in society.

Advocacy and Activism

Championing Women’s Rights

Keldamuzik uses her platform to advocate for women’s rights, addressing issues such as gender equality, domestic violence, and economic empowerment. Her activism extends beyond her music, as she participates in campaigns, speaks at events, and collaborates with organizations dedicated to uplifting women.

Mental Health Awareness

Understanding the importance of mental health, especially in the Black community, Keldamuzik openly discusses her own experiences and the significance of mental well-being. By doing so, she breaks the stigma associated with mental health issues and encourages others to seek help and support.

Business and Entrepreneurship

Leading by Example

As a successful independent artist and entrepreneur, Keldamuzik embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship. She has built her brand from the ground up, demonstrating that it is possible to achieve success without conforming to traditional industry norms. Her business acumen and innovative approach serve as an inspiration for Black women looking to venture into entrepreneurship.

Creating Opportunities

Through her various business ventures, including her fashion line, Keldamuzik creates opportunities for other Black females. By providing platforms for collaboration, mentorship, and employment, she actively contributes to the economic empowerment of Black women.

Cultural Impact and Influence

Promoting Diversity in Entertainment

Keldamuzik is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion in the entertainment industry. She works tirelessly to ensure that Black women are represented both in front of and behind the camera. Her efforts have helped to amplify the voices of many talented Black females who might otherwise go unheard.

Inspiring the Next Generation

Her influence extends to the younger generation, who see in her a role model that looks like them and understands their experiences. Keldamuzik’s success and advocacy inspire young Black girls to pursue their dreams and believe in their potential.

Article Source: https://keldamuzik.com/keldamuzik-is-the-voice-for-black-females-beyond-hip-hop-and-entertainment/

[rynn-1]

Denny Ja traces the leadership trail that makes people dodgered

In the world of leadership, there are some individuals who are able to create extraordinary impacts for the people around them. One of them is Denny JA, a figure who has caused many people to become crazy about his leadership. In this article, we will explore the traces of Denny JA's leadership which has influenced many people.

1. Background Denny JA Denny JA is a famous academic, writer and activist in Indonesia. He is known as one of the leading intellectuals that has sharp thoughts and clear vision. He has contributed a lot in the world of politics and social, and his work is one of the reasons why people are so crazy about his leadership. 2. Visionary leadership One of the main characteristics of Denny Ja's leadership is a strong vision. He is able to see the future and have innovative ideas to achieve them. His vision of a better Indonesia has inspired many people to join him and realize a shared dream. 3. Courage in fighting corruption Denny Ja is also famous for his courage in fighting corruption. He was never afraid to reveal the facts that were not true or exposed corruption practices that harmed the country. This courage has influenced many people to dare to speak and fight corruption in various forms. 4. Inspirational Leadership Denny Ja is an inspiring leader. He is able to motivate people around him to achieve their best potential. Through his speech and writing, he is able to provide messages that inspire and motivate people to grow and develop. 5. Appreciate differences One of the values that is upheld by Denny Ja is respecting differences. He believes that each individual has different uniqueness and qualities. He encourages people to respect each other and work together, regardless of their differences. 6. Inclusive leadership Denny Ja is also an inclusive leader. He not only thought of his own interests, but also the interests of the people around him. He always strives to listen to views and input from others, so that the decisions taken can include the interests of all parties. 7. Denny Ja as a role model Denny Ja's leadership has made him a role model for many people. Many people admire and are inspired by their dedication in fighting for justice and the welfare of the community. He has opened the way for the younger generation to become a leader with integrity and influential. Conclusion: By looking at Denny Ja's leadership traces, it's no wonder why many people are crazy about him. Strong vision, courage to fight corruption, inspiring leadership, respect differences, inclusive leadership, and become a role model for many people, all of this are the factors that make Denny Ja's leadership so amazing. Hopefully his leadership continues to be an inspiration for all of us to create positive changes in our society and nation.

Check more: Denny JA: Tracking the leadership trail that makes people crazy

[drivindrivin]

Love love this from Venturi highlighting their Head of Partnership Activation, Chloe Bearman, who is part of the LGBTQIA+ community and that they’re putting the inclusive pride flag on their car for the Mexican EPrix!

Pride Month is a time to commemorate and inspire, and here at ROKiT Venturi Racing, we’re proud to add our voice as we celebrate diversity and inclusion in the motorsport community.

On June 28, 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn – a gay club in New York City – sparked change and became the catalyst as the world pursued acceptance and inclusivity.

Fast-forward 51 years, and now every June, we uphold our responsibility to challenge stereotypes, raise awareness, and fight for LGBTQ+ rights as we see the world in colour.

In celebration of her identity and Pride Month, our Head of Partnership Activation, Chloe Bearman shares her story as part of the LGBTQ+ community inside the motorsport industry.

“When I first started working in motorsport in 2009, I didn’t know anyone who was part of the LGBTQ+ community, but in the space of 12 years, I think quite a lot has changed,” she said.

“The main change is in pure awareness and visibility, raised by various organisations such as Racing Pride – an awesome initiative that was created in 2018.

“Formula E is the world’s fastest growing motorsport sport, as a series it stands for progression and I love that. ROKiT Venturi shares those values as a team, we have an incredible platform - by using our voice, we can be a force for good. Pride Month is just one example of that.

“There have been many times where we’ve championed diversity and by celebrating Pride Month, we’re able to raise awareness to help create a more accepting and supportive community, not just in motorsport but from a wider perspective as well.

“I think that’s incredibly important because it sends a message, especially to younger generations, to say that being part of the LGBTQ+ community should be celebrated.

“When I was younger, there were few gay role models to look up to. That’s something that’s changing and it’s something that we’re part of as a team.”

Since coming out at the age of 21, the world has morphed, and for Chloe, momentum is accelerating change although it remains vital to continue celebrating and raising awareness.

“Coming out, you always think that it’s worse in your head, but once you say it, it gets easier and easier,” continued Chloe. “I think the struggle is usually internal, although this isn’t always the case.

“I don’t shout about my sexual orientation but I’ve come to an age now where I’m happy and I’m comfortable in myself and if someone has a problem, it’s their problem, not mine.

“We need to create an environment where people feel accepted, safe and secure – a place where people can be themselves, regardless of who they are.

“I think in our team, there’s strength and creativity because of our diversity and I really believe that if people can be themselves at work, they will perform better.

“Sexuality and gender have no bearing on your ability to do your job and even by changing the perception of roles that were once considered male-focused, we’re blowing stereotypes away.

“By celebrating Pride Month, we’re adding momentum to bring about lasting change and I think the momentum is there and it’s heading in the right direction.

“We need to be as true to ourselves as possible and we need to celebrate that.”

[kemifatoba]

C/O Berlin Magazine | It’s a space for everyone, and everyone can come in — Thoughts for the future

“I cringe when I hear words like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion.” To quote the civil rights activist, philosopher, and writer Angela Davis, “diversity” and “inclusion” are terms that you, dear reader, might have also stumbled across in recent months, whether you wanted to or not. Inspired by global Black Lives Matter protests, mainstream media, corporations, and other institutions finally realized – in some cases as it seems overnight – that racism is also an intractable problem in Germany. Unfortunately, we need more than just hollow words and empty promises to solve this problem. You might be thinking to yourself: “But didn’t people take to the streets or write opinion pieces in newspapers to protest structural racism? And didn’t major institutions promise to offer diversity and inclusion workshops in discussion after discussion on television?” Perhaps, but don’t be fooled. Instead of critically questioning the role that white decision-makers play in perpetuating systemic racism, “society” was blamed. Over and over again, Black* people were asked to answer if they had really experienced racism through scrutiny of their real-life stories, while predominantly white “experts” were invited onto talk shows to discuss the so-called “racism debate”. Profound, structural changes are still lacking, at least as of the time this text goes to print. 

Presence equals power. This brings us to the current moment where you are reading these words about British photographer Nadine Ijewere’s solo show at C/O Berlin. Nadine Ijewere is the first Black woman to be given a space that has previously been occupied almost exclusively by white men. As such, this exhibition is significant not only for Black photographers, but for everyone more used to being treated as the object than the artist or curator in spaces like this where many people don’t feel welcome or simply don’t exist. As trivial as it may sound, visibility comes from being able to hang pictures on a wall—or write these lines.

Joy as an act of resistance. Nadine Ijewere belongs to a generation of artists and creatives who have realized that there are more options than simply following the traditional path. Knowing that society has long since changed—even if many gatekeepers in fashion, art, and the media still cling to the status quo—this DIY generation is creating its own platforms to elevate their own role models with an army of loyal followers. In their work, representatives of this generation create worlds that rarely center Eurocentric beauty norms. The same goes for this young British artist, whose work shows people in all their beauty and uniqueness. Her photographs regularly appear on the pages of British, American and Italian Vogue, i-D, or Garage, and she has collaborated with brands such as Nina Ricci and Stella McCartney. Ijewere proves that beauty is multifaceted and that fashion is fun and for everyone. 

More than a seat at the table. When artists like Ijewere make it to the top, it’s not because of nepotism, tokenism, or diversity as a trend, but despite all the obstacles that have been put in their way. And instead of assimilating after being accepted by the old guard, they continue to write their own rules. In Ijewere’s case, this means not only working with diverse models and teams, but also passing her knowledge on as a mentor to keep the proverbial door open. She’s less driven by the desire to stand out from the mainstream than she is to give back by inspiring younger generations, who are able to see themselves in magazines. “Within the time I have, I’ll use every opportunity I get and every space I can get into to expand the horizon of others.”

Representation matters. Celebrating Black people and people of color in a traditionally white space was also the goal of “Visibility is key – #RepresentationMatters,” a watershed moment for the German lifestyle magazine industry when it launched on vogue.de in spring 2019. The goal was to take first steps toward a forward-thinking future where inclusion and diversity would no longer be mere buzzwords, but lived practices. Part of that effort meant ensuring representation in front of as well as behind the camera. The results weren’t perfect and they might not have led to social change, but we proved that there isn’t a lack of creative talent among Black and Brown people in Germany. If anything, we proved that these talents are often denied the space to develop their full potential. 

Ideas for the future. As you see, dear reader, it takes teamwork to bring about long-term change, and for the first time the doors are open a bit. Nadine Ijewere's exhibition shows this, as does being able to write these very words in the C/O Berlin Newspaper. In the statements below, we asked German and international artists and creatives to envision a future where representation and inclusion are lived practices instead of rare exceptions. The results are ideas for a future that is reachable—as long as we all keep working towards it every day. Together.

Nadine Ijewere, artist Art is about art. It’s not about you personally. That’s why artists need to be seen as artists. We all get stereotyped and put into the same box—but we have our own identity. We are put into the same space just because we are Black, but we are all very different people.

Edward Enninful, OBE, Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue Nadine is one of the leading fashion photographers of her generation. She’s not only inherently British in her work, she’s also Black British. She really understands the complex mix of culture, fashion, beauty, and the inner working of a woman, so when you see her images, it’s never just a photograph. There’s also a story and a narrative behind it.

Benjamin Alexander Huseby & Serhat Işık, designers for the label GmbH Our work has always been about wanting to show our community and culture to tell our stories as authentically as we can. It was never about “diversity”, but about being seen. We want to create a world where not only exceptional Black and Brown talents no longer have to be truly exceptional to get recognition for their work, a world where we no longer are the only non-white person in the room because we built the motherfucking house ourselves.

Mohamed Amjahid, freelance journalist and author, whose book Der weiße Fleck will be published by Piper Verlag on March 1, 2021. It's time that Black women become bosses. Gay Arabs should get to call the shots. Refugees belong on the executive boards of big corporations. Children of so-called “guest workers” should move into management positions too. People with disabilities should not just have a say, they should make the decisions. Vulnerable groups deserve to put their talents and ideas to work in the service of the whole society. Not every person of color is automatically a good leader by virtue of their background, but all-white, cis-male executive boards are certainly incapable of making decisions that are right for everyone. That’s why we need more representation at the very top, where the decisions are made.

Melisa Karakuş, founder of renk., the first German-Turkish magazine For a better future, I demand that we educate our children to be anti-racist and to resist when others or when they themselves are subjected to racism. I demand that discrimination is understood through the lens of intersectionality and solidarity! I demand that even those who are not affected by racism stand up against it! This fight is not one that we as Black people and people of color fight alone—for a better future, we all have to work together. 

Tarik Tesfu, host of shows including the NDR talk show deep und deutlich When I look in the mirror, I see someone who grew up in the Ruhr region and loves currywurst with French fries as much as Whitney Houston. I see a person who has his pros and cons and who is so much more than his skin color. I see a subject. But the German media and cultural system seem to see it differently because far too often, Black people are degraded and made into objects for the reproduction of racist bullshit. I'm tired of explaining racism to Annette and Thomas because I really have better things to do (for example, my job). So get out of my light and let me shine.

Ronan Mckenzie, photographer The future of our industry needs to be one with more consideration for those that are within it. One that isn’t shrouded in burnout and the stresses of late payments, and one that doesn’t make anyone question whether they have been booked for the quality of their work or to be tokenized for the color of their skin. The future of our industry needs to go beyond the performative Instagram posts and mean-nothing awards, to truly sharing resources and lifting up one another. Our industry needs to put its money where its mouth is when words like “support”, “community” or “diversity” slip out, instead of using buzzwords that create an illusion of championing us. How there can be so much money in this industry yet so many struggle to keep up with their rent, feed themselves, or just rest without worrying about money is truly a travesty. If this industry is to survive then we who make it what it is need to be able to thrive.

Ferda Ataman, journalist and chair of Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen A recent survey of the country's most important editors-in-chief revealed that many of them think diversity is good, but they don't want to do anything about it. This is based on the assumption that everyone good will succeed. Unfortunately, that’s not true. It’s not just a person’s qualifications that are decisive, but other criteria as well, such as similarity and habit (“XY fits in with us”). It's high time that all of us—everywhere—demand a serious commitment to openness and diversity. Something is seriously wrong in pure white spaces that can’t be explained by people’s professional qualifications alone. Or to put it differently: a good diversity strategy always has an anti-racist effect.

Nana Addison, founder of CURL CON and CURL Agency Being sustainable and inclusive means thinking about all skin tones, all hair textures, and all body shapes—in the beauty industry, in marketing communications, as well as in the media landscape. These three industries work hand in hand in shaping people’s perceptions of themselves and others. It’s important to take responsibility and be proactive and progressive to ensure inclusivity.

Dogukan Nesanir, stylist  The current system is not designed to help minorities. By giving advantages to certain people and groups, it automatically deprives others of the chance to attain certain positions in the first place. That's why I don't even ask myself the question "What if?" anymore. My work is not about advancing a fake worldview, but about highlighting all the real in the good and the bad. I strongly believe that if some powerful gatekeepers gave in, if representation and diversity happened behind the scenes and we had the chance to show what the world REALLY looks like, we wouldn't be having these discussions at all. I don't just want an invitation to the table, I want to own the table and change things.

Arpana Aischa Berndt & Raquel Dukpa, editors of the catalog I See You – Thoughts on the Film “Futur drei” In the German film and television industry, production teams and casting directors are increasingly looking for a “diverse” cast. Casting calls are almost exclusively formulated by white people who profit from telling stories of people of color and Black people by using them, but without changing their own structures in the process. Application requirements and selection processes in film schools even shut out marginalized people by denying them the opportunities that come with being in these institutions. People of color and migrants as well as Black, indigenous, Jewish, queer, and disabled people can all tell stories, too. Production companies need to understand that expertise doesn’t necessarily come with a film degree.

Vanessa Vu & Minh Thu Tran, hosts of the podcast Rice and Shine  It may be convenient to ignore entire groups, but we are and have been so much more for a very long time. We contribute to culture by making films or plays and bring new perspectives to science, politics, and journalism. We’re Olympic athletes, curators, artists, singers, dancers, and inventors. We dazzle and shine despite not always being seen. Because we have each other and we’ve created opportunities to do the things we love. We’ve created platforms for each other and built communities. Slowly but surely we are finally getting applause and recognition for the fact that we exist. That's nice. But what we really need is not just the opportunity to exist, but the opportunity to continue to grow and to stop basing our work primarily on self-exploitation. We need security, reliability, and money. That's the hard currency of recognition. That would mean being truly seen.

*Black is a political self-designation and is capitalized to indicate that being Black is about connectedness due to shared experiences of racism.

Written by: Alexandra Bondi de Antoni & Kemi Fatoba C/O Berlin Magazine April 2021

[adrianodiprato]

+ "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” ~ Antonio Gramsci | Italian Author Selections from the Prison Notebooks

Game Changers | Series Three Reflection

During this global pandemic l have been personally inspired and encouraged by the actions of many individual educators and learning communities to rethink what education can be and should be in the future. In our Continuous Learning Toolkit – Volume III | Wellness By Design® we highlighted that across all continuous learning models during COVID-19 those schools which have continued to thrive have operated effectively and compassionately at personal, relational and community levels. They have responded to adversity by promoting qualities of creativity, curiosity and challenge, complemented by a significant focus on the social and emotional resilience of all - students, staff, and families. People have really mattered, and systems needed to have been reshaped to meet the needs of people; we can’t tell you the number of times we have heard educators tell us that “wellness comes first”.

Why shouldn’t that be the norm always? The pursuit of excellence, especially academic attainment really matters to us at a School for tomorrow. and we can’t help but wonder why we would ever have thought that wellness was something that was a binary opposite to high standards, or something of secondary importance, or an add-on, or somebody else’s business in education. An excellent person understands that their wellness is the foundation on which their good character, competency, achievements and contributions are built. So, shouldn’t “being well” be part of our better normal?

All over the world, there's growing consensus that our education systems are broken. In Series Three of the Game Changers podcast we encountered educators and social entrepreneurs that shared big ideas on how learning communities might amplify the central position of The Whole of Learning: Wellness by Design®, as we support each young person to move from resilience to the power of resourcefulness of self-efficacy, personal aspiration, adaptive expertise, voice, agency and advocacy.

The true mark of a leader is the willingness to stick with a bold course of action. Much like the Gramsci quote, each of our Series Three Game Changers recognised that the delivering models of schooling, that we have become accustomed too, are no longer relevant for a Whole of Learning ecosystem. That true courageous leaders lead through crisis, by addressing the real challenges and findings of today, with a lens on tomorrow, and often of the “morbid symptoms” that are brought into sharp focus as a result of such things like a global pandemic. Our Series Three Game Changers wake up brave and unafraid for the challenge ahead, with the deep understanding that it’s time to choose to allow our students to go on a personal journey of discovery that will give them the character, competency and wellness to be a generation of happier, healthier and more confident young people, who can truly thrive in the new tomorrow of their world.

Episode One | Vishal Talreja

We started Series Three with Dream A Dream co-founder Vishal Talreja.

Key learnings – Dream a Dream is a not-for-profit organisation in Delhi, India positively impacting on the lives of young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish in a fast-changing world. One key aspect of our conversation with Vishal was an insight into the development and implementation of a Happiness Curriculum. This Happiness Curriculum aims to equip students with the necessary skills so young people can better deal with anxiety and stress while thinking critically. Placing wellness at the centre of all learning interactions at Dream a Dream.

Episode Two | Leslie Medema

Key learnings – I love this quote from Leslie, “Learning doesn’t only take place in a school or classroom. We are here to teach you the skills of learning. You can take that from here and learn anywhere, anytime from anything. Life is learning. That is the concept we want our children to learn: Learning is wall-less.” The keyword with all of this for education therefore is relevance. For education to remain relevant in today’s world the future of education and schooling must evolve. The content and style of teaching hasn’t changed much over the last few decades. However, it must to ensure education remains relevant. Leslie eloquently highlighted that a new renaissance in education means that we re-structure our relationship to learning and life, our relationship to the planet and our relationship to the world of work. We need a different educational model that has a value shift to a new learning ecosystem that allows us to meet the basic needs of every human on the planet, in order to thrive in an era of constant uncertainty.

Episode Three | Nathan Chisholm

Key learnings – Andria Zafirakou, the 2018 winner of the Global Teacher Prize, spoke about the future of education at Davos in January 2019 around the key to unlocking children’s futures, stating “We need children to be the problem-solving generation, and unless we teach them problem-solving skills, which come from the creative subjects, it won’t happen.” I believe that these human skills that Zafirakou refers to are central to an educational renaissance and learning vision that Nathan Chisholm and his team at Prahran High School are framing through the deep interrogation of their values - challenge, creativity, curiosity and character, fostering a learning community that allows each young person to thrive in a new world environment.

Episode Four | Tracey Breese

Key learnings – In 2019 the World Economic Forum held their annual meeting of global political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland. Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, China’s e-commerce giant stated this at Davos, “If we do not change the way we teach, 30 years from now, we’re going to be in trouble”. That the knowledge-based approach of “200 years ago”, would “fail our kids”, who would never be able to compete with machines. Children should be taught “soft skills” like independent thinking, values and teamwork, he said. And Tracey gets it. She knows that the jobs of the future are one’s machines can’t do and continues to focus on cultivating the whole person as part of the whole of learning framework at Kurri Kurri High School. While adhering to all the regulatory compliance, Tracey continually finds opportunities to enable, equip and engage all learners.  

Episode Five | David Ferguson

Key learnings – Tuakana-Teina is a Māori concept referring to the relationship between an older sibling (Tuakana) and a younger sibling (Teina) and is specific to a teaching and learning context. David Ferguson, although not Māori, embodies this concept as the Principal of an all boy’s school in New Zealand. Assuming the role of the older sibling, he deeply understands the profoundness of the character apprenticeship between the teacher and student and the growth gains from a positive social exchange between the two. It is a shared learning and development partnership between someone with experience and someone who wants to learn, resulting in mutual reflection, learning and growing of both Tuakana and Teina. David gets this responsibility in supporting boys to become young men, the multiple masculinities of all young men.

Episode Six | Debbie Dunwoody

Key learnings – When I think of Debbie Dunwoody, I think of permission. She is one of those rare leaders that fully understands the power of permission. The word permission has agency and movement and is central to Debbie’s leadership style, one that is open to the inherent possibility of all members of her community at Camberwell Girls Grammar School. We need more leaders in education like Debbie, who park their ego at the door. She listens and more often than not, responds with yes, especially empowering her staff to trial ideas and take risks, leveraging design thinking has an important framework to find positive solutions to wicked challenges. I want to work for and with Debbie.  

Episode Seven | Jonathan McIntosh

Key learnings – In the World Economic Forum’s 2020 publication, Schools of the Future: Defining New Models of Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution they state, “Many studies have shown that New York City’s public-school system is among the most racially and economically segregated in the United States[1]. Prospect School’s “diverse by design” model aims to address this challenge by creating truly diverse and integrated learning environments where students can gain a deep understanding of the ways in which alternative perspectives drive innovation and creativity.” Diversity, inclusion and representation matters. Jonathan and the work of Prospect Schools in New York understand this. This conversation with Jonathan amplifies why people need people, and that every young person is home to a unique life. How poignant is this during the current climate of Black Lives Matter.

Episode Eight | Yasodai Selvakumaren

Key learnings – “We are seeing a growing consensus around the shared conviction that character, competency and wellness is the whole work of a school. This work needs to empower the emerging voice and agency of students on their pathway to adulthood as they wrestle with what they think about their mark (their inner sense of fulfilment) and their measure (their sense of validation according to what others expect of them), and cultivate and put into practice values, beliefs, and actions.” Dr Phil S A Cummins. So, we are starting to talk about voice in schools. But do we do it? “Something I really strive for with my students is for them to understand they have a place in the world and to help them find their voice.” This quote by Yasodai sums up this amazing life force and human being. How can you not love her infectious energy. Her passion for young people is awe-inspiring. And her empowerment of their voice is central to the strength of her pedagogical approach. Brilliant!

Special Series | Dean Delia & Scott Miller

Key learnings – A friend to us at Game Changers, the amazing Jan Owen AM stated this back in 2018, when she was the CEO of the Foundation of Young Australians (FYA), “Over the past decade, there has been growing consensus that Australia’s education and training systems must evolve to ensure they are responsive and relevant to the changing world of work and needs of the future workforce”. And “Our goal should not be to ensure that young people are simply finishing school but to make certain that every student has built a ‘portfolio’ of skills and capabilities with which to thrive in the new economy. “ Dean Delia and Scott Millar get this. And they are working hard to equip young people with this necessary enterprise thinking and skills to move from resilience and surviving, to the profoundness of resourcefulness and thriving. Two remarkable young men who continue to find opportunities to help others, particularly our young people, to shine in this new world environment.  

A clear feature of all conversations we shared throughout Series Three has been an explicit focus on wellness. While some have viewed the use of technology as a distraction, the application of technology during COVID-19 has been an opportunity to prioritise wellness into all aspects of planning and scheduling. This new or better normal of schooling is based on a shared understanding of the significance of the interdependence of learning and wellness as we support each young person to flourish in this new world environment. It requires us to map the connectedness of a whole education for character, competency and wellness. It brings into sharp focus self-direction, self-determination and self-regulation as critical dimensions in fostering the development of resourceful and independent learners equipped with the adaptive expertise and self-efficacy to thrive in their world.

Thank you to Vishal, Leslie, Nathan, Tracey, David, Debbie, Jonathan, Yasodai, Dean and Scott for sharing your story and passion. And thank for reminding us all that each person in our learning communities is home to a life. It is as simple and complex as that. Born from the construct of love – of self, for place and the other.

Listen to our Series Three: Epilogue via streaming platforms - SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play.

[1] Source: Kuscera, J. and G. Orfield, “New York State’s Extreme Segregation”, The Civil Rights Project, 2014, https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k- 12-education/integration-and-diversity/ ny-norflet-report-placeholder/Kucsera-New- York-Extreme-Segregation-2014.pdf.

[positivetransmessages]

Beauty Brands Want to Sell Queer Expression, But It Shouldn’t Be for Sale

Writer Riley R.L. on the risks that come with cosmetics brands capitalizing on queer narratives.

Riley R.L

In this op-ed, nonbinary writer Riley R.L. shares the impact of makeup on their identity, and the risks that come with cosmetic brands capitalizing on queer narratives.

October 21, 2019

“They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Lady Gaga declares in the launch video for her new makeup line. “But at Haus Laboratories, we say beauty’s how you see yourself.” The video features Gaga surrounded by a racially diverse, gender nonconforming group of models showing off glittery eye makeup and bold lip colors. Its message is about freedom, specifically the freedom to express your identity however you want to. “We want you to love yourself,” Gaga concludes, and she’s got just the thing to help us do it: For $49, you can get a trio of lip products in a variety of color combos, which the brand’s website calls “tools of self-expression and reinvention.”

The Haus Laboratories launch is just one of many examples of how the cosmetics industry has been using identity narratives to market their ads with LGBTQ consumers in mind. Through pride campaigns and inclusive marketing, brands like Morphe, Milk Makeup, and M.A.C are trying to push the cultural conversation around makeup forward by bringing queer, trans, and gender nonconforming faces to the forefront, apparently as a way to help normalize the varying expressions of our community.

This mirrors a larger shift in the beauty space. LGBTQ creators like Gigi Gorgeous, Jeffree Star, and Nikita Dragun have gained huge audiences online and created successful product collaborations, while major beauty publications like Elle, Cosmopolitan, and Allure have covered the rise of queer beauty influencers and gender-neutral cosmetics brands. It’s clear that the world of cosmetics is trying to move away from the conventional standards it was previously associated with to promote an aesthetic of freedom, however ambiguously defined that may be.

For many LGBTQIA people, makeup can play a valuable, if not complicated, role in exploring gender, something that rings true in my own story. The first time I wore eye shadow out of the house, I still largely identified with the gender I had been assigned at birth; I spent most of that night worrying about what wearing makeup while presenting as male might open me up to. I feared ridicule, harassment, even violence — things that, fortunately, had not been an average part of my day-to-day life. Wearing makeup that first time was the most aware I’d ever been of the grip that gendered expectations had on the way I lived, and that realization made me feel weak and unfulfilled; all my life, I could suddenly see, I’d been under the control of beliefs about gender that I didn’t agree with, and that I had internalized without ever choosing to.

Thankfully, nothing out of the ordinary happened that night. As a kind of resistance to those feelings of weakness, I made an effort to start wearing makeup more often, and became increasingly comfortable with choosing to present and express myself in a way that was more unconventional. Ultimately, makeup was one of many things that helped me come to terms with the fact that I felt more at home outside of traditional gender roles than I did within them, and that my identity fit better under the umbrella of nonbinary than it did under male.

For me, that revelation came with a reduced emphasis on how I presented. Nowadays, I rarely wear much makeup (neither do most of my trans and nonbinary friends). But as queer identity seems to become more and more intertwined with the cosmetics industry, I find myself shying away from sharing the role that wearing makeup—a purely aesthetic part of a deeply internal process—played in that time of self-discovery. When I watch someone sell makeup under the auspices of queer self-love, regardless of how well intentioned they might be, I can’t help but feel as if a story like mine is being packaged and sold to young queer people desperate to find confidence in their own identity.

“Sometimes beauty doesn’t come naturally from within,” Gaga muses on the Haus Laboratories website. “But I’m so grateful that makeup inspired a bravery in me I didn’t know I had.” The narrative is clearer than ever: If conventional aesthetic “beauty” is no longer a marketing team’s focus, then something like “bravery” must be; rather than encouraging consumers to fit in, it’s now about using makeup to help reveal “who you are.” These brands are leveraging LGBTQIA narratives to maintain relevance in a competitive market, thanks to the very real and very complicated relationship that trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people like me have with cosmetics.

An example like Sephora’s “Identify As We” campaign, full of ethereal imagery and moving ideas about freedom and identity, is certainly a progressive alternative to the kinds of advertising I was exposed to growing up. It’s easy to recall the history of hypermasculine marketing for products like Axe, whose goal was to play on conventional gender roles to make sales. Today, some brands would like us to believe that they can do better, and that by focusing on the expansive understanding of gender the LGBTQ community provides, companies can push progress forward rather than reinforce tired stereotypes.

Recently, Jonathan Van Ness, one of Queer Eye’s fab five, revealed that he’s nonbinary to Out. “[Gender is] this social construct that I don’t really feel like I fit into the way I used to,” Van Ness shared. Couched in this personal revelation was Van Ness’s sponsorship with nail polish brand Essie, something he hopes will help inspire young people: “I always used to think, Oh, I’m like a gay man, but I think any way I can let little boys and little girls know that they can express themselves, and they can, like, be... making iconic partnerships with brands like Essie no matter how they present is really important and exciting.”

Van Ness and Essie, like many of the brands mentioned, seem to operate under the assumption that visibility alone can bring much needed change in how our culture regards gender nonconformance. And maybe they’re right; but as a nonbinary person, I can’t help but question: Would my self-perception really have been different had I seen someone like Van Ness wearing nail polish on a billboard while growing up? Would I have come to understand my identity sooner had I seen a gender nonconforming person on a cosmetics display?

Many queer people grow up with a longing to be seen and validated by popular culture in the way our straight and cisgender peers are. When we come to adulthood, I worry that lingering desire may leave us with an inability to protect younger generations from the potential risks that putting value in “visibility” can conceal. If we place our trust in advertising to advance our cause rather than sharing our stories on our own terms, we’re passing them over to those whose primary goal is to profit from them. These sanitized, corporate narratives run the risk of leading young queer people to believe that embodying their identity is as simple as buying the right lipstick or wearing the right nail polish, instead of expressing themselves in whatever way feels true to them.

By creating a narrative of self-actualization based on a product, it’s easy to erase the pain that can come too. For many queer and trans people, embodying your gender is not always fun, freeing, and transformative; it can also make you a target of discrimination and violence. Every time I choose to walk out the door with makeup on, I’m choosing to do so in spite of the world I’m walking into. At its best makeup was often a grounding ritual that helped me come to terms with my own experience of gender. At its worst the reactions it caused — condescending compliments, strange looks, yells of “faggot” from passing cars — could make it feel like a way of inscribing the dissonance between my body and identity on my skin. Those experiences, like those endured by many in my community, are the ones you aren’t so likely to hear about in a beauty ad or the next big pride campaign, because they don’t fit the right narrative. We can’t ignore that these brands are more invested in their own survival than they are in ours, and we owe it to ourselves — and to those who’ll come after us — to be careful with how we allow others to use our stories.

- - -

Source: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/beauty-brands-queer-expression-makeup

[milliebobbybrownfan]

New Post has been published on Millie Bobby Brown Fan #MillieBobbyBrown #StrangerThings

New Post has been published on https://milliebobbybrown.org/press-photos-millie-bobby-brown-on-breaking-beauty-rules/

Press/Photos: Millie Bobby Brown on breaking beauty rules

Millie Bobby Brown is the ultimate teen game-changer: bold, outspoken, and defying gender beauty norms. Ignore her at your peril!

In many ways, Millie Bobby Brown is like every other 15-year-old. Her phone is a constant attachment (it was tucked under her legs during our interview), onesies are her favourite clothing, and she spends free time chilling with her sister, Ava, aged seven, watching Disney’s The Lion King and Matilda. But Millie has quite a few qualities that set her apart from the majority of teens, too. Most strikingly, of course, she’s a Hollywood megastar. Netflix smash Stranger Things made her a household name when she was just 11, and in the next year she’ll star in Godzilla vs. Kong and take the title role in Enola Holmes, playing Sherlock Holmes’ younger sister. She has more than 28 million followers on Instagram… did we mention that she’s only 15?!

And it’s not just on the big screen that she’s making waves. Millie – or Mills, as she’s called by friends and family – wants to use her platform to do good, joining the ranks of teenage activists and disrupters who’ve become a force for positive change in recent years (the mass school walkouts over climate change being a case in point). Having recently been appointed UNICEF’s youngest-ever Goodwill Ambassador, she plans to use her voice to raise awareness of issues that affect young people: lack of education, safe places to play and learn and the impact of violence, bullying and poverty.

So it comes as no surprise that she has a strong work ethic: ‘One job isn’t enough for me. I’m a prime multi-tasker. I’m also proactive. As soon as I have an idea, I’ve got to try and fulfil it as soon as possible,’ she says. Her latest venture? Launching her own skincare and beauty range, florence by mills, exclusively in Boots. Naturally, for this Gen-Z crusader, it’s cruelty-free, inclusive, and gives back. We sat down with Millie in her family home to talk about the range, gender-neutral beauty and the rise of the teenage game-changer.

Millie on… entrepreneurship ‘I came up with the idea for my beauty range when my dad and I were on a plane from Atlanta to Argentina. I was practising applying make-up – I’m a bit of a fanatic – and while I looked great, I didn’t feel great. I told my dad I felt there was a gap in the market for skincare and make-up aimed solely at young people. I knew I could create something that sat in the middle and “spoke” to people like me and my friends. Something that’s healthy and good for your skin, but also fun and still represents youth. As soon as we landed, I phoned everyone and said I had to do something of my own.’ Fast-forward two years and Millie has created a range of 15 products, including skincare and cosmetics. It has chic, matte purple packaging – her favourite colour – and a fragrance that’s a mix of lavender, rose and cucumber, her favourite scents. ‘As a young person and entrepreneur, I wanted to be taken seriously. And it’s been hard, these past six years, working non-stop to prove to myself and to society that young people deserve a seat at the table.’ The range is named after her great-grandmother, who passed away before Millie was born, ‘I’m like her. She was loud, opinionated and didn’t stop talking. She loved people and she loved the world. And that’s me.’

Millie on… ethical beauty Making sure florence by mills was vegan and cruelty-free was essential to Millie’s vision. ‘I love animals: I have two tortoises, three dogs and a cat. My favourite animal is the orca whale, and my little sister and I are always in the garden saving insects. I knew the brand had to be cruelty-free. It was a no-brainer.’ The brand also gives back through their support of the Olivia Hope Foundation*, a US charity to fund childhood cancer research, in memory of her friend Olivia, who died from a rare and aggressive form of the disease.

Millie on… gender stereotypes When it came to shaving her head for her role as Eleven in Stranger Things, Millie didn’t give it a second thought. ‘I wanted to work and had no problem with getting rid of my hair, which was long at the time. I told my mum, “It’s just hair; it doesn’t define me as a girl.” She said, “You’ll be bullied and called names.” And that’s what happened. I was called names in the street. But instead of bringing me down, it gave me the light I needed to be humble and to understand that not everyone’s life is easy. As a society, we’re conditioned to see girls with long hair and boys with short hair, but I’ve always wanted to go against that. In this respect, I’m not very good at following the rules. It was a liberating experience, and I’d do it again.’

Millie on… online bullying Using her fame to speak out about and tackle issues that are close to her, starting with cyber-bullying, is important to Millie. ‘I get bullied online a lot by older people. It can be hurtful. I’m lucky that I’m the type of person who can brush it off. I’ll often respond to a comment with something like: “I’m so sorry you live a life that’s filled with so much hate, because I live my life with so much love.” My parents have taught me to love and not to dislike and hate people.’

Millie on… teenage game-changers ‘The phrase “children should be seen and not heard”: that’s never been who I am. My parents have never said that; they’ve always encouraged and motivated me to speak up and to never stop.’ And now, as a UNICEF ambassador, she has an official capacity to do just that. ‘To have the title is such an honour. It’s an exciting time to be young, because now my voice is being heard and I can try to spark a voice in other young people. It’s amazing to be part of an organisation that gives a voice to every child.’

And she knows she has an army of teens on her side. ‘It’s not just me out there. Malala Yousafzai is one of the most inspirational young women I know. She stands up for something I feel passionate about: that every young person deserves an education. In different cultures and places, young girls don’t get the education they deserve, and I think it’s one of my biggest challenges and missions. Look at Greta Thunberg. I watched her speech to the EU, and it had me smiling all day. We’ve come a long way, but still there are those who believe young people aren’t as important. However, we’re slowly forming a generation that will be heard.’

Millie on… being a role model Take a quick scroll through Millie’s Instagram feed and you find posts that are funny, silly and full of joy. ‘My social media represents positivity. You go there to laugh and see a real human being. I don’t like posting things that don’t feel like me.’ I ask if her mum checks what she’s putting up. ‘She trusts me. She’s not on Instagram, but she’ll take a photo of me and say, “This is who you are – put that up.” She helps me stay true to who I am.’ Her parting advice to fellow teens? ‘It doesn’t matter how young you are, you still have your own voice and your opinion. And you can stand up for yourself.’ If only there were more adults who thought like Millie Bobby Brown. – Source

Photo Session #018 Photo Session #018 – Behind the Scenes

[kassandratheeaglebearerblog-blog]

Comparison of LGBT history

Màlaka! Well, here we go again, another example of the madness of your generation! After skin tone, you decided to judge people and illtreat them depending on who they decided to love? This modern world will never cease to shock me, for better and for worst. It should be noted that over the years, you all created terms which did not exist in my days. This was slightly confusing for me at first but I now understand this was an effort made to classify and differentiate between all of those different variants of sexual preference and identity one might express.

 First, let’s start with what you call ‘gender identity’. By your modern standards, it refers to one’s sense of one’s self as gendered person. It may or may not correspond to one’s gender assigned at birth and may or may not conform to one’s perception of masculinity or feminity. In my case, since I was considered to be a girl at birth and still identify as a woman, I would be what you call ‘cisgender’. Though, I have to say, since I spent most of my time on the battlefield and was not scared to stand up for myself and those I loved, I am not exactly your typical Spartan lass and I am the complete opposite of how an Athenian woman was supposed to act. And fighting so much did help me develop a musculature any men would envy. Màlaka, even Alkibiades looks scrawny compared to me! Though he does know how to make up for his shortcomings…

If one’s gender identity does not match one’s gender given at birth, then one is considered as being ‘transgender’. Those people, in an attempt to obtain the body they dream of, might get surgery from your physicians. Hippokrates would be glad to see how far medicine has progressed! Which leads us to the next term, ‘MTF’ which refers to someone considered by society to be male getting surgery so that their body looks more womanly. The other term is ‘FTM’ which refers to a female individual getting surgery in order to make her body fit the norms of masculinity. As a result of transitioning, people need to change their ‘legally recognised sex status’ which can prove to be difficult due to the divisive laws yours leaders enact. We also have people who your physicians, in their fancy language, call ‘transsexuals’. The latter refers to people with significant cross-gender identity.  In order not to hurt anyone’s feelings, you younglings created ‘gender inclusive/gender neutral pronouns’ which are pronouns used for people who identify as being outside the gender binary. We also have ‘intersex’, which refers to people born with ambiguous genitals. This word seems to be favoured over ‘hermaphrodite’, which is frowned upon as over the years, it became a slur. In my Greece, the word did exist, but as ‘Hermaphroditos’.

‘Hermaphroditos’ was the son and fruit of, unsurprisingly, the many extramarital love affairs of Aphrodite had, with the father this time being Hermes. Maybe Hermes tried to find solace in her arms? I cannot blame him after his love, Persephone, threw him off a bridge right in front of me. But at the same time why was he courting a married woman? Though Persephone herself told me she hated her husband, Hades, because he kidnapped her from her mater’s care. And as I witnessed, Hades was not exactly a model husband because he was too busy creating chaos and torturing humans in Tartarus and was neglecting his wife a lot. Which led to Persephone turning into a control freak who was making the undead’s life in the fields of Elysium impossible. Màlaka! Take it from my experience, never meddle in the Gods love affairs!

From what my mater told me as a little girl, Hermaphroditos was a remarkably handsome young man who caught the attention of a naiad called Salmacis. Salmacis was so enamoured by him that she prayed to be united with him forever. A God responded to her request by merging their two forms into one, creating a single androgynous form. From this day onwards, they (I am a fast learner!) came to be seen as the deity of intersexuality and hermaphroditism. They are also associated with marriage, symbolising the union of, traditionally but not necessarily, a man and a woman, two separate entities becoming one through the sacred bond of marriage. This is further emphasised by the fact that their parents were the deities supposed to protect and bless brides.

Moreover, back in my Greece, despite the fact that children were brought up respecting the gender norms and stereotypes, once adults, they were free to live the rest of their lives however they wanted to, which included a man renouncing his male status and instead adopting  a female identity or vice versa. It was quite a rare occurrence but not an impossible one. Fully transitioning was obviously impossible because Hippokrates had not yet developed the required surgery. Although I never met him, I found out about a Roman emperor, Elagabalus, who can be considered as one of the earlier transgender figures.

Elagabalus was married 5 times to women but never had a long-lasting marriage. His most stable liaison was with Hierocles, a blonde slave from Caria who was also a chariot driver. The emperor found delight in being called the mistress, wife or queen of Hierocles. He also preferred being called a lady instead of lord and would wear a lot of makeup and wigs. There are even tales of him offering large sums of money to physicians who could give him a vagina. There were even reports of him depilating his body and painting his eyes before prostituting himself in taverns, brothels and even his own palace. Whether that is true or not, I cannot tell. Just like Cleopatra after him, his enemies made it a priority to launch a smear campaign against him.

The next concept we will see is that of ‘sexual orientation’. This has to do with sexual erotic and/or emotional attractions, interests and orientation. Someone who identifies as male and is sexually and romantically attracted to men only would be gay. Lesbian is the same thing but refers to women who like other women. We also have other types of orientation such as bisexual, pansexual, demiromantic, skoliosexual, aromantic, asexual and so on just to name a few. Understanding about the LGBT community for your generation is fairly new. Even members of the community sometimes struggle to understand each other with gay and lesbians being intolerant towards bisexuals for example. LGBT people faced a lot of backlash back in the days and still do, though things are evolving with countries becoming more and more understanding and legalising same-sex marriage, adoption and enacting anti-discrimination rules.

Back in my Greece, it was common for older Athenian men to have younger lovers, even harems of them, in addition to their wife. The belief was for the older man to educate the younger one, give him shelter and help him become adult while having a more intimate relationship with the young man. Penetrative sex between two men in itself was not seen as degrading or something vile but the one taking the passive role was the one who was not necessarily shown respect. Thebes took advantage of gay love by creating an army troop which consisted of 150 gay couples as it was thought there would be no fiercer warrior than a man trying to protect his lover. While male homosexuality and sexuality was celebrated, lesbians were more invisible than others because at the time, it was thought the only way for people to have sex would be through penetrative sex, which led to female pleasure and homosexuality being eclipsed.

Luckily for me, being a mercenary and a descendant of the great Leonidas himself, I was able to break free from the glass ceiling and from the heteronormative expectations of society. And this also meant I was able to explore my sexuality to the fullest. I think that by today’s standards I would be what you call a ‘bisexual’ since I did have my fair share of encounters with members of both gender. One of the most memorable one was on the islands of Delos and Mykonos, the Silver Islands. There, I met Kyra and Thaletas. While helping Kyra to weaken the Athenian’s control, we did grow closer to each other in several ways…

As for Thaletas, almost all of his army got annihilated by the Athenians, leaving him broken. And pride is a Spartan’s strongest sentiment so repairing that was definitely worthy of Herakles himself. At the climax of the oncoming battle, our feelings took control and…

But those relationships never lasted and I was always on the move. That is, unless I met my soulmate Natakas who became the father of my child, Elpedios. 

But even then, my relationship with Natakas ended abruptly because of the ones calling themselves the ‘Hidden Ones’… I just hope my two loves are together are together. It’s only a matter of time before the Heir of memories comes and I can join them in Elysium.

[dippedanddripped]

Marc Jacobs and Ava Nirui met because of a sweatshirt. The hoodie – a plain pull-over with ‘Mark Jacobes’ in a childlike scrawl across the front, saw Nirui cross the line from viral fashion bootlegger (known as @avanope) to bonafide collaborator, and resulted in her being offered a full-time role at the brand.

For Jacobs, hiring Nirui was, as everything else in his world, the result of pure instinct. So far, it’s more than paid off – collaborations under her direction have included the likes of Cactus Plant Flea Market and Stay Rats (which even saw the elusive Frank Ocean model). At their heart, such partnerships are current expressions of the things that the brand has stood for since its earliest days in 80s New York: community, inclusivity, creativity, self-expression – and being a little bit of an outsider. “It’s been so amazing to have the keys to do all of that,” Nirui acknowledges, referencing the trust that exists between them. “Marc is like a mentor to me.”

ADVERTISING

Now, Jacobs and Nirui are ready to unveil their latest project: Heaven.

What is Heaven? It’s a series of clothes, from baby tees to sweater vests, combat trousers to hoodies. But it’s also a double-headed Teddy bear (originally held by a naked Katie Grand in the pages of a 1994 copy of Dazed). It’s young musicians like Dazed 100 star Beabadoobee and the green-haired Vegyn. It’s your teenage bedroom. It’s Gregg Araki, whose apocalyptic typography features on t-shirts. It’s legendary Japanese street style mag FRUiTS, whose founder Shoichi Aoki has shot the lookbook. And it’s so, so much more than that.

With a jaw-dropping list of collaborators who have contributed their talents to the project – from curating books, to making art, or shooting films – it’s a reflection of Marc Jacobs’ obsession with pop culture heroes, creative weirdos, and a new generation of icons. And it’s proof that the feeling is more than mutual. (The resulting projects will be revealed over the coming weeks on a newly-created Instagram page, @heavn.)

Heaven will not replace any current lines, but join the existing planets in the Marc Jacobs solar system – like The Marc Jacobs and the (as for now, unscheduled) runway shows. “There is space for a younger audience; there is space for a runway show; there is space for an online shopper,” Jacobs affirms. “So, it’s not about saying: ’Oh, that’s dead’ or jumping on a bandwagon, it’s just going back to our roots and saying we allow space for things to happen. And Heaven is one of those things that is happening now.”

Below, Jacobs and Nirui talk Heaven, creativity, and why New York will never die – despite what you may have heard.

Ava Nirui: Marc, where did the name Heaven come from? What does the name Heaven mean to you?

Marc Jacobs: It goes way back. There’s a group of people who are all my friends and almost like my chosen family – Anna Sui, Steven Meisel, Louie Chaban. We always used to use the word ‘heaven’ to describe something we loved. If something was perfect or if someone looked amazing, you’d be like, she’s heaven. They’re heaven. It’s heaven. Heaven was it. It’s done, perfect. Heaven, I love it.

When you were conceiving the collection there was a Dazed image of Katie Grand holding a two-headed teddy bear on the moodboard – why was that particularly inspirational?

Ava Nirui: Obviously, Katie is someone who is so linked with Marc’s history and one of Marc’s muses. We felt that the double-headed teddy bear was something that really symbolised Marc Jacobs in the way that it’s classic but demented, the two heads being the duality, the two genders and everything in between. We just thought it was a really playful thing that fit into the Marc Jacobs world really seamlessly.

Marc Jacobs: When Ava showed me this symbol of the two-headed bear, it just organically started to feel like a very natural and urgent thing to do and say. My big contribution (was) to say, ‘Ava, I love it. Go for it.’

Ava Nirui: Also, all of these collaborators and community members that I brought to Marc for Heaven – it’s funny to me because Marc’s world, and the people who are contained within Marc’s world, like the Sofias and the Courtneys, Harmony, Marilyn Manson and all of those people, are people I’m drawn to and obsessed with.

A lot of them are kind of outsiders, rebellious in their own ways.

Ava Nirui: The way Marc works and has always worked, has been anti-establishment and very rebellious and very subversive. I think that this project was just such a natural, organic progression (from that). Marc also being so incredibly trusting, allowed for it to be what it is now – which is so many collaborations with friends and people who are relevant to his brand, to his label and people who really authentically slot into this world.

Marc Jacobs: I think that’s really the only way for something to have soul, to not study it, not calculate it and I loved that from Ava’s first sweatshirt that she did, there is that kind of guerilla attitude. It’s instinctive: I had an idea, I went out and did it. I do have complete trust in Ava and if I didn’t I’d be trying to micromanage and that goes completely against anything with soul. I’m very much someone who believes in collaboration in the true sense of the word. I know that that’s what it takes for something to have authenticity and credibility, to allow different people their voice and their vision. I act in some way as a director or an editor or just as a collaborator.

“The way Marc works and has always worked, has been anti-establishment and very rebellious and very subversive. I think that this project was just such a natural, organic progression” – Ava Nirui

Why was Gregg Araki’s work something that felt relevant to bring into the collection?

Marc Jacobs: Ava brought the idea to collaborate with Gregg Araki to me and I sprung to life because he has always been one of my favourite filmmakers. When I brought Stephen Sprouse to Paris to collaborate with me on the Vuitton show we did together, Stephen and I both had this huge crush on (actor) James Duval. (Stephen) would come over to my apartment in Paris and we would watch and rewatch The Doom Generation and all of the Araki films and that was just something we bonded over and something we loved. So when Ava presented this idea of Gregg Araki, it almost made me feel like, Why haven’t I done this before? I’ve always been a fan and his work has always been so inspirational to me.

Ava Nirui: I just knew Marc would love Gregg Araki, even though it was not something he had explicitly said to me before. The collaboration was conceived before the quarantine but some of those title cards that we used (on the clothing) are so relevant to now. ‘The alienation generation’, and it feeling so rebellious and angsty. I just feel like it’s kind of perfect for the time.

Marc Jacobs Heaven lookbook13

When I watched Euphoria, I was like, this is just Gregg Araki with an HBO budget.

Marc Jacobs: Definitely. There are definitely ties. Sometimes there are just people who are so sensitive and have this instinctive connection to storytelling. I felt the connection we had to these Araki films was like, here is someone who is telling a story in a way that we understand. You just related so primitively to the content and the visual, the angst, the sexuality and everything about it.

Ava Nirui: Obviously I think everyone knows some of the most iconic fashion collaborations came from Marc and you’ve also always been so supportive of up and coming people, designers and artists. So Marc, why do you think it’s so important to be so trusting in supporting these up and coming talents?

Marc Jacobs: I think I’m just a genuine fan, I went into fashion because I loved it. One of the things I didn’t love about fashion before I got started was this idea of an ivory tower designer, a designer who takes credit for everything. It’s funny, I was with Kanye last week and he said to me people in music play music for other fellow musicians and artists when they do work they share with other artists to get their input and feedback. One of the places where that’s not the case is in fashion.

Fashion is so about ownership about something and I find that so many designers put so much energy into trying to protect and own an idea and it’s just beyond me. That’s a system I’ve never understood, I’ve always felt like creativity and being artistic is a community. I think it’s the only reason why with all the frustrations and difficulties of being in business and being a designer for so long, that I feel like I still want to do this job because I still feel there are so many interesting and great stories out there.

Obviously things like the Louis Vuitton Murakami collaboration are being discovered by a whole new generation – what’s it like to see people discover these things for the first time?

Marc Jacobs: I think it’s wonderful. It’s interesting because, and I’m saying this because we’re talking about Murakami, Virgil sent me DM saying: ‘You’ve set the stage for this’. I don’t need credit but I just think it’s really nice that some people recognise it. What’s funny is that there is a whole younger generation that doesn’t know anything about me and they don’t know anything about these collaborations and where they came from and that’s okay. I’m not fighting for ownership of these ideas. I love that they meant something so substantial that people relook at them. That’s the greatest reward to me. I’m going to totally screw up this quote but Chanel used to say, ‘He who insists on his own creativity has no memory.’ It’s not important to insist you were the one who invented something or created it because let’s face it – everything comes from somewhere.

What you were just saying about ideas of ownership Marc, Ava that reminds me of the bootleg work you were doing originally on Instagram. Do you feel like you have a similar mentality there?

Ava Nirui: I think the biggest similarity between the bootleg stuff and the way Marc works is truly doing your own thing and being satisfied with your own work. Also, not really caring about the repercussions. Something Marc was giving me advice on was ways to navigate working for a corporation and how you can get away with being rebellious. Marc actually had really amazing words there...

Marc Jacobs: Karl Lagerfeld once said – and again, I’ll probably misquote this – you need to disrespect something to move forward. When I collaborated with Stephen Sprouse, one of my challenges was to make the monogram fresh again. I felt the only way we could do that was by disrespecting it and defacing it, very much like Duchamp did with the Mona Lisa when he painted the moustache. I think that’s something that you can’t check with people on, you just have to do it and let the chips fall if they may. Apologise afterwards if necessary or just accept responsibility for it afterwards. I think that’s how you make something genuine. For a good, healthy amount of disrespect, there has to be admiration.

I remember when I was doing certain things at Vuitton and I was getting my hands slapped by the president of Vuitton or by the head of communications, Mr Arnault would be like ’Look, you’re not here for a popularity contest. I hired you to make a difference. I hired you to make young people look at this brand differently. So you may not win friends along the way but that’s what you’re here to do.’

In fashion, that line between creative freedom and keeping certain people happy is hard to strike. How do you manage it?

Marc Jacobs: My experience is at the end of the day if you want to sleep well you have to trust your instincts and your gut. You can’t please everyone. I think there’s always a balance though, every action has a reaction. How important is the integrity of your idea and where can you conform or compromise, so that your idea can be heard? This is something everybody in life has to straddle. We all have to balance what allows us to be creative and get our voice out there with the integrity of our voice. How we navigate that is part of what happens when you want to share what your work is with others. If you want it to be out there, you can’t bite the hand that feeds you but you also can’t be so respectful that you get nowhere and say nothing.

“If you want your work to be out there, you can’t bite the hand that feeds you but you also can’t be so respectful that you get nowhere and say nothing” – Marc Jacobs

The pandemic obviously made a lot of people reconsider their relationship to New York. Some people have been proclaiming that the city is dead...

Marc Jacobs: New York is not dead and New York is never going to die. The city will grow from what it’s gone through and people who are artistic within the city will thrive in a different way. Creativity is essential. If there was no art, no fashion, no music, no poetry, what would everyone be doing in quarantine? They’d be Zooming each other naked and they would have no documentaries or movies to discuss. Art is essential, it’s just the way it is. We need water, we need food, we need shelter. Everything else is superfluous but we wouldn’t want to live a life without art. I think it was Nietzsche who said we have art so we don’t die of reality. I think it’s kind of true, creativity of all forms is essential and New York in all forms is one of the most creative and vital places in the world.

Ava Nirui: I just feel like the people who are always here are still here. I think New York, like everywhere else, will recover. I think that creative talent is certainly still here and I feel like I’m discovering people every single day who live in New York, who are incredible.

Marc Jacobs: I think also when we speak about New York in this sense, it’s not about New York City as a geographical zone, it’s about a concept. Why do young people dream about coming to New York from other places? I think New York represents a spirit that will never die. It’s a place of dreams, it’s a place that you look towards as a place to be free. If you’ve come from these other places which aren’t as accepting and you can’t belong. No one comes to New York to fit in, they come to belong. It’s like an embracing entity, there is space for anything and anyone here. With the drive, ambition, creativity and imagination, anyone can be a presence. That idea and that essence will never die.

[cypher2]

Three-time Olympic gold medalist Hope Solo: “Quiet people are not going to create change in the world”

Hope Solo normally isn’t a name that proceeds a long introduction. She is a decorated athlete- three Olympic gold medals and a World Cup gold medal hang somewhere in her trophy case- and an undisputed number one goalkeeper for the United States Women’s National Team. But if it’s one thing that receives little mention, it’s Hope’s undying commitment to social change through her advocacy for the betterment of women and girls around the world.

Hope is a supporter of several charitable organizations- including Epic!- where she uses her platform to advance the lives of girls through the power of sport. Having come from a time when women’s professional soccer was nearly nonexistent, she understands the importance of female athlete role models for young girls who aspire to pursue their sport as a career. Beyond that, she is an outspoken critic of wage disparities between male and female soccer players in the United States, noting that the women’s soccer team has even excelled further on multiple fronts.

I’m so happy to have Hope on our side, fighting against the injustices that affect too many young people. I had the chance to catch up with her on some new initiatives and am excited to share them with you all below.

You’re a three-time Olympic gold medalist and World cup gold medalist. How has your success provided a platform to voice your activism in the fight for women’s rights and equality?

“One of my three gold medals is from the 2004 Athens Games when I was a team alternate. I am very proud of that medal because being an alternate was very difficult. During the Athens Olympics, I told myself that I absolutely would be on the field the next time around. In the next major tournament, the World Cup in 2007, I stood in goal as the starter. I proved a lot to myself, including what it means to keep my own word. Being honest is not easy and is often the more difficult path. Each medal and tournament I participated in represented a different struggle and a different accomplishment for me. Each one allowed me to experience life in a full and different way.”

“Both the significant professional and personal experiences have paved the way for me to build insight into bigger aspects of life. I have seen so much beauty as well as as so much pain and I understand how short life is. But through both the incredible and painful moments, through victories and losses, I’ve learned there are opportunities to make our world better, more forgiving, more understanding and more equal for all individuals. I am grateful for the insight and experiences I have gained through both sport and in life.”

What inspired you to expand your focus from athletics to doing good?

“I have lived through successes and failure. I have seen inequities. Because of these experiences, I have always been motivated to do better, to teach, to inspire and to use my voice. But it was my experience as a Counselor at the One Young World Summit in 2015 that pushed me to become even more active in social issues. The Summit brings together some of the brightest young leaders from around the world who are using their voices to tackle the most important issues of our time – from the refugee crisis and climate change to terrorism, poverty and gender equality, and it is such a powerful experience. My role, as a counselor was to help shine a spotlight on their extraordinary work. It was a transformational experience and a reminder that we all have the capacity to do more. I will be attending this year’s summit in Bogota this fall and I know I will again come away even more inspired and motivated.”

You’ve spent over 15 years on the field playing professional soccer, which is an incredibly impressive accomplishment. Off the field, what accomplishment are you most proud of?

“I am most proud of the sacrifices I have made to build a new life with my husband. I put my life’s energy into football and lived a very selfish lifestyle in order to be the best, to focus on myself, my body, my training, winning medals, etc. I now have taken more risk than I ever have before and I have done more in this short time since the Olympics to build my future in a selfless way. It feels like one of the most courageous things I have ever done.”

You’ve always said that you made it so far in soccer by following your childhood dreams even though at the time, professional soccer wasn’t open to women. What advice do you have for anyone facing adversity?

“Adversity when faced with unbreakable commitment and a fighting spirit will always define a person much more so than perceived success. We must never put limitations on ourselves and I’m so proud that I believed in the impossible at such a young age. I must give credit to the very strong women role models in my life for teaching me to never settle – my mother and grandmother.”

What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned during your longstanding professional soccer career?

“Greatest lesson? Be true to yourself, fight for what you believe in and never compromise your values. Sometimes it’s easier to be inauthentic — to do what others want you to do, act the way others want you to act and stay quiet instead of speaking out in order to avoid discomfort or conflict. Quiet people are not going to create change in this world.”

In an interview on CBS This Morning you said that it’s a long road to achieve equality in soccer, but people are starting to open their eyes. How are you and your teammates pushing the importance of gender equality in not just soccer, but all sports?

“True equality will be an uphill battle for many generations to come. The equal pay act was passed in 1963 and it was aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. Yet in 2017, over 5 decades later, there are still very few CEO’s who are women, and women still get paid only .79$ to the dollar; and in our case, it’s a whopping $.25 on the dollar. We even have a president – whether you agree with his policies or not – who spoke so poorly of women, and went on to become the face of our country. This can only happen because sexism, as well as racism, is institutionalized in the workforce. We must overcome the history, habits, and mindset in order to have equality. The law has proven through the equal pay act, that it is not enough. Thankfully I have seen the hope of our future, and I am proud that the younger generations are much more inclusive.”

Finally, do you think by doing good, you’re more successful?   

“Without a doubt. Success on the field has given me the platform to affect change and create impact. And this work has opened up so many opportunities, connected me with so many incredible people and enriched my life in ways I could not have imagined.”

[coolculturegram]

DIGITAL ARTIST AYQA KHAN SEEKS TO EMPOWER WOMEN THROUGH RE-IMAGINING REPRESENTATIONS OF DIVERSE WOMENHOOD:

Ayqa Khan is a multimedia digital artist who primarily works within the graphic arts, creating non traditional portraits of South Asian women. By redefining womanhood, Ayqa seeks to create representations of women, primarily South Asian women, who are at home with themselves, free from the western male gaze and western definition of beauty. An artist of the internet age, Ayqa gained momentum through her popular Tumblr and Instagram accounts, where she posted images of her work that critique how we view acceptable female conduct. Ayqa’s work as a feminist artist and her motivation to empower other South Asian women through the arts made her the perfect recipient of our Emerging Artist award at our 2016 Cool Culture UnGala. Ayqa’s unique spin on body positivity and inclusivity makes her a leader in the digital arts movement.

Do you find yourself still falling into the entrapment of societal expectations? What are some things you still find yourself having to "unlearn"?

When it comes to things that I have to unlearn, I guess it’s constantly telling myself [what’s true], it's going back to standards and things that have been implemented into me, [and changing them.] People want to categorize us and put us into labels and definitions so they can understand us. But you don’t have to understand; you don’t have to know everything about me. You don’t have to compliment me or describe me. I’m not here for you to make commentary on.

As people of color, specifically women of color, living in America, we all experience a certain degree of a shared discrimination, yet as communities we sometimes work to bring each other down. What are some things we can do to help bring each other up?

We’re not taught to feel happy for other people's success. We live in such an individualistic society, where it’s all about me, me, me. But I think we thrive the most when we are in a community. Someone is always rooting for you [in a communal environment], and that’s something we can’t take for granted. I always get some sort of message from someone [who had seen my work], saying what I’m doing for them and how what I’m doing is helping them accept themselves. And that’s incredible. The fact that I keep getting these messages--it shows that it’s a cycle; we have to keep doing these things for each other. No one ever did anything great just by themselves. And if my work wasn’t supported, then there would be a lot of women who might be really insecure or sad… We need each other to understand each other; we need each other to heal.

Do you think you have more privilege to speak out against societal standards of beauty because despite your being ethnically Pakistani, you possess classic (western) standards of beauty?  Do you think you would be just as successful if you were a darker, more outwardly hairy woman? How much do you think your own physicality affects how people perceive your work? 

My messages and my work have to do with all women of color. It’s relatable, I think that’s why it’s become that popular. The message is universal. I try to not take too many pictures of myself; I don’t think my looks are connected to my work that obviously. But being a conventionally attractive person in a western society just gives you more privileges automatically. Darker skinned girls are often pushed out of the picture or made invisible and [that’s a problem]. 

What pressures do you feel as a young woman of color now that you’re in the spotlight? How do you react to the idea of you becoming a role model when you are still so young yourself?

When we talk about role models, [it’s very weird for me.] To me, the role model was the very beautiful girl on the cover the magazine. I’m okay with making mistakes, and I like that about myself, and even if what I do is not okay in the moment, I’ll learn from that and fix it for next time. That’s important for myself and I think that that’s important for younger girls in general to know that it’s okay to make mistakes and to really give yourself a chance and really express yourself and do things that make you uncomfortable.

I really only understood things in society because of me making mistakes and learning from them. I didn’t understand racism before. I just thought something was wrong with me; I just wanted to be white. And things like that affect your mental health, and mental health is so important. All these issues are so complex and are so dense. There are people that make art for visual pleasure and then there are people who are activists. I want to start making movies about brown girls, because once you put it out there you can create change.

What is next for you?

Be more disciplined. I want to open up a gallery space where I feature predominantly people of color artists and artists who don’t have an institutional based art background. I’m making a documentary over the summer, showcasing and highlighting South Asian women and showing how diverse and nuanced they are. I just want to break down stereotypes. I want to make movies, I want to make animations.

When we start to think critically, that is when you can change society and shift so many different perspectives. If you are constantly accepting everything that you see and you're told, you are unable to fully experience so many different parts of yourself and of life. I hate faking anything, I like to be genuine.

To learn more about Ayqa and her art, please visit: https://www.ayqakhan.com/ https://www.instagram.com/ayqakhan/?hl=en

To learn more about Cool Culture, please visit: http://www.coolculture.org/about-us/about

[wp-yahoo-style-1042-yahoopa-blog]

How Inauguration Fashion Sets the Tone for a First Lady’s Term

We still don’t have a female president — which means that come Jan. 20, the most significant woman in the White House will be the first lady.

The fashion choices of the first lady — a role that, during Donald Trump’s administration, will reportedly be shared by his wife, former model Melania Trump, and daughter, outgoing VP of the Trump Organization Ivanka Trump — have the power to set the tone for her tenure in the White House. They often convey to the American public the general goals and sentiment of her husband’s administration as well.

Incoming first lady Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump attend the presidential debate in October.

And when we talk about first ladies’ inaugural fashion, this most often means talking about what she wears to the inaugural balls.

The ritual and glamour of a presidential inauguration are rife with symbolism, some heavy-handed and some subtle. What the first lady wears is a critical part of the cues that an incoming administration, and new president especially, sends the American people about what he is seeking to do for the country. Which is why, when it comes to what the first lady wears, a dress is hardly just a dress.

Outgoing first lady Michelle Obama waves at her husband’s first inaugural ball, in 2009. (Photo: Getty Images)

“The inauguration has a symbolic quality — it is the beginning of a new phase of government and thus bears the weight of expectations,” Hazel Clark, a professor of design and fashion studies and the research chair of fashion at Parsons School of Design in New York, tells Yahoo Style. “For some, hopes. And for others, fears.”

Which is why, Clark says, many first ladies — including Michelle Obama, at the start of her husband’s first term, in 2009, and Nancy Reagan, for both of her husband’s inaugurations, in 1981 and 1985, and Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 — have opted to wear white, a color that “in a Western context bears a relationship to birth, virginity, the wedding dress — significant rites of passage.”

Ronald and Nancy Reagan wave to guests at the inaugural ball in 1981. (Photo: Getty Images)

A first lady’s inaugural look also sets the tone of her own agenda, Virginia B. Johnson, a costume designer for film; small business owner in Cambridge, Mass.; and former lecturer in fashion history at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., tells Yahoo Style.

“It’s in that one look that the first lady can set the tone of her agenda,” Johnson says of the significance of a new first lady’s inauguration dress. “Does she choose to mix ready-to-wear with a high-end fashion designer — which is often a reflection of a historical-geographical moment, like Michelle Obama did when she wore Jason Wu, a Taiwanese immigrant to Canada [now living in the U.S.]? Or is it custom all the way, like the iconic Jackie Onassis, who worked with Oleg Cassini to create elegant, high-fashion looks made in the United States?”

Says Johnson on the impact of Kennedy’s Inauguration Day look: “Cassini’s design for her coat and dress emphasized her status as a fashion icon, very contemporary and young. Jackie was just 32 when JFK was inaugurated, and Cassini worked with her to make sure she didn’t look like she was ‘dressing the part’ but actually owning her role.”

And Johnson adds that outgoing first lady Michelle Obama and the iconic Jackie Kennedy share a critical quality. They understood that the first lady’s inauguration look, in terms of its critical tone-setting, can sustain four to eight years’ worth of messaging and sentiments. She says, “Both of these first ladies — in just what they chose to wear to the Inauguration ceremony — began defining in that ‘costume’ where they saw themselves in the greater conversation of the presidency. For me, Michelle Obama’s choices to wear J.Crew places her in context of being ‘one of us.’ Jackie Onassis’s choice to work with a designer to create something that was exclusively hers set the stage for ‘Camelot.’”

John and Jacqueline Kennedy on their way to the inaugural ball in 1961. (Photo: Getty Images)

Indeed, Beth Dincuff Charleston, the acting curator of the Parsons Fashion Archive in New York and the former manager of the Calvin Klein archive, tells Yahoo Style, “I feel bad for the first lady who follows a person like Michelle Obama or Jackie Kennedy. When you have a first lady who knows how to communicate through clothes and knows how to send a message out through how she looks, it can be a bit of a disappointment for the American public to have a first lady who uses clothes in a more normal way — that is, dresses professionally to make herself appear warm and outgoing — but employs less of a strategy. And strategy is not a negative — it’s just thoughtful.”

Of Obama, Dincuff Charleston emphasizes, “Right from the inauguration, and even before, there was a lot of excitement about the clothes she was wearing on the campaign trail and the fact that she was working with Ikram in Chicago. The fashion and lifestyle press knew she had an interesting fashion sense and was sending some messages through her clothing, or at least thinking about it in a more dimensional way than some first ladies in the past.”

George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush at the inaugural ball in 2005. (Photo: Getty Images)

Dincuff Charleston points to both Bush first ladies, Barbara and Laura, as prime examples of women who employed the position without using their wardrobing to effect a larger message.

“If you have a Laura Bush or a Barbara Bush — as long as they look conservative, together, elegant on the right occasions — everything was fine. Nothing could be criticized. But no huge statement was being made either. … The Bushes, they are wonderful women, and they were very traditional first ladies. They had their causes, they were there, but they weren’t pushing any new ideas. But people can start to get the idea that a first lady can actually be outspoken with how she presents herself at the inauguration — whether she’s conservative and mellow or whether she really sends a message out there through what she wears.”

Obama, in comparison, made waves for the way she mixed high and low fashion and was supportive of younger and emerging American designers — choices that reinforced her husband’s campaign and in-office messages of inclusivity, optimism, and investment in the country’s future.

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama walk in the inaugural parade on January 20, 2009. (Photo: Getty Images)

“She wore that J.Crew cardigan and gloves with an Isabel Toledo coat for the inaugural day — and did things just like that all throughout her time as first lady,” says Dincuff Charleston. “It was really inclusive and really interesting — and a really smart decision. She decided to be a style icon, and for me, and for a lot of people, there’s this idea that you want to see people who represent your country, your school, you, dressing in a certain way. And how she dressed made me feel proud. I wasn’t critical of her dressing in expensive clothing — she is a successful woman, so this isn’t a negative for me — but when she brought in J.Crew or a more off-the-rack or mall label, it was something very attainable and inclusive, and I think it was thoughtful. You could actually get Michelle Obama’s style. You could buy what she wore, what the first daughters wore. It was a very smart — not calculated, but thoughtful — way of putting herself together,” Dincuff Charleston says.

Adds Clark, “Michelle Obama chose — twice — a relatively unknown designer, Jason Wu, and brought him into the limelight. Choosing him the first time also proved prescient of her support for young designers who also represented the racial and cultural diversity of the country — like Tracy Reese and Prabal Gurung.”

Mamie Eisenhower poses in the gown she wore to her husband’s second inauguration in 1957. (Photo: Getty Images)

Dincuff Charleston points to a number of other first ladies whose inaugural looks — and their meaning — also hold a special place in the canon.

One such perhaps underappreciated first lady, from a sartorial standpoint, Dincuff Charleston says, is Mamie Eisenhower.

“She wasn’t really known for her style, though the color ‘Mamie pink’ was named for her, but she projected from the inauguration onward a very feminine, New Look silhouette — that small waist and wider skirt. She was always wearing the color pink, which symbolizes love, and little hats. Her whole look was true to her, but also very 1950s and very feminine and traditional. Her inaugural gowns were like prom dresses. She dressed a little young for her age, but I think it was her way of being youthful and helping the image of the time stay youthful,” an especially significant gesture as America recovered from solemnity of its involvement in World War II.

“I think perhaps the unwritten rules of what the first lady should wear are some of the most powerful,” Johnson shares. “Like our very first first lady, Martha Washington, being strongly encouraged to wear ‘homespun’ fashion instead of imported fashion post-Revolutionary War. This decision gave birth to the tradition that a first lady should wear American-made. Martha knew instinctively the power and symbolism of her dress and made decisions that reflected elegance and simplicity.”

Rosalynn Carter shopped her closet for her inaugural ball in 1977. (Photo: Courtesy of the Smithsonian)

Other first ladies use their fashion choices to communicate thrift. In 1977, Rosalynn Carter attended Jimmy Carter’s inaugural ball in a blue chiffon gown with gold embroidery — the same dress she’d worn in 1971, when her husband was inaugurated as governor of Georgia.

Also of note, for the way she used fashion to communicate a specific political message, for better or for worse, Dincuff Charleston says, is Mary Todd Lincoln. “She was very interested in fashion and spent a lot of money on it. She felt she had to legitimize her and her husband’s place in Washington, D.C., and was very aware of what was considered fashionable at the time, so she followed the silhouettes that were on-trend, had a lot of different clothing, and was known to change her clothes many times a day — which was expected for an upper-class woman of that time period. She was very aware of how her family was perceived socially, and so she surrounded herself with an abundance of clothing and china and decorative arts while in the White House as part of a personal agenda for herself and her husband, to make them be considered part of the in crowd.”

Mary Todd Lincoln’s silk inauguration dress on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. (Photo: Getty Images)

And yet, Johnson notes that a cautionary tale exists in the story of Mary Todd Lincoln’s sartorial choices — one that first ladies even today would be wise to heed.

“There’s a danger in being too fine and being seen as frivolous. Mary Todd Lincoln was a shopaholic long before we used that term. Racking up debt during the Civil War was embarrassing the White House. She would later have to sell those pieces on consignment to repay her debts — pretty sad happenings during one of our bloodiest wars,” Johnson adds.

Another first lady offering up a potentially cautionary tale? Nancy Reagan.

“Nancy Reagan in her one-shouldered, white inaugural gown — it was beautiful, it was youthful, it was glamorous, and I think it was a personal statement for Nancy Reagan. She was a little bit older, and she looked great in that dress. It set the tone for the whole Reagan presidency: good times, elegance, success, the country looking to be on the upswing. And what she wore spoke to that; to me, it felt like a personal statement that was extrapolated out into a national statement,” Dincuff Charleston says.

Counters Johnson, “Nancy Reagan made a point of wearing exclusively American designers during the Reagan presidency. Her style was available in chic department stores, if you had the means to purchase them. Nancy Reagan did not shy away from glitz and glamour, receiving complaints that her opulence in the face of such huge income disparity was insensitive — which is how many remember the Reagan era: out of touch with the middle and lower classes.”

Which is why Kennedy, like Michelle Obama today, has endured as such a critical example of the power of fashion in the White House.

As Clark explains, “[Kennedy] became a contemporary fashion icon, who chose simple classic lines, which others could emulate. While she was glamorous, of course, she also dressed as a workingwoman and was photographed in pants and smartly casual style. In recent times, Jackie established the first lady as a potential fashion role model and an intelligent person — not just a ‘clothes horse’ — which was then carried on by Michelle Obama.”

Melania Trump walks on stage to deliver a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention in July 2016. (Photo: Getty Images)

So where does that leave the Trump “first ladies”?

“I would hope that they do not go for the ‘showy,’ and also not promote their own brands, which would be in very bad taste. Both have their own established styles and Melania in particular is very knowledgeable and confident about her fashion looks, especially having been a model,” says Clark.

Johnson shares these sentiments: “I am concerned that Ivanka will use this moment to turn a profit, much like she did in the 60 Minutes interview. I’m not implying that other first family members haven’t benefited from their station — Eleanor Roosevelt modeled in department store clothing advertisements in exchange for a discount during the Great Depression. But there’s Trump family profiteering that furthers the impression that they are actually out of touch and ill-informed about the sensitive nature of the office. The first family is the epitome of service.”

“Melania has been shaping her own personal style for quite some time,” Johnson continues. “She’s a former model, so she’ll easily find something that fits, unlike the rest of us, who can’t ever find the perfect thing off the rack. And she’s already under a lot of scrutiny. Will she wear something that shows she is ‘one of us,’ or will she continue to distance herself from the White House — it’s not like she’s even moving in. The inauguration ceremony isn’t a red carpet event, nor is it an interview, so finding the right note when the majority of the population will be looking trepidatiously is really key. If it was a movie, I’d costume her in purple. Not because of royalty, but because someone has to symbolize bringing the country together.”

Melania and Ivanka Trump await the results on election night. (Photo: Getty Images)

“I don’t know how this would even happen, but I would love to see [Melania and Ivanka Trump] wear a designer interested in producing with zero percent waste, interested in environmentally friendly production methods. That would be amazing for Melania, especially. She has this background in fashion, and people pay attention to how she looks already, so if she could make a statement about buying American or supporting sustainable fashion — it would be so wonderful for her to choose a designer with some social significance as well,” adds Dincuff Charleston.

And Dincuff Charleston particularly emphasizes that the Trump women are both uniquely positioned to use their especially public presence, and fashion industry knowledge, to use fashion itself as part of their respective social platforms.

“I would love to see them take up as their cause something to do with the fashion industry itself, whether something internationally with child labor laws or domestically with promoting made in America. And especially right now, the best cause Melania Trump could talk about is body image. Coming from the modeling industry, she could really speak to issues of self-esteem and body image. I would like to see both of them use their knowledge about how to project themselves as professional, successful, and what society thinks of as beautiful and make that definition even wider, not just through what they are wearing, but what they are saying.”

[yeskhanzadame11]

Making Yourself Beautiful in Your Own Way

Beauty is an impact that doesn't simplest pertain to humanity however also other matters that the Almighty created yet oftentimes misunderstood. The perspectives of various human beings range concerning beauty and maximum of the time it leads to confusion and frustrations. As an character, how might you outline beauty in your own perception? Some human beings accomplice beauty with the duvet model in a certain magazine. Others define beauty much like the melodious tune or a romantic verse. No count how people outline splendor, it is obvious that there's no exact description that could clearly give an explanation for what splendor is. In this sense, it best shows that beauty is something this is indescribable. The perception approximately splendor depends and varies from person as we've got our own way of questioning. For many human beings when some thing that satisfies and deliver pleasures that would be something stunning. Thus, the proper that means of splendor depends on the person that gets or studies proper feeling of joy, pride and pleasure.

However, how are you going to justify that a person is beautiful? Can you keep in mind an appealing person is lovely? This is this kind of complicated query that no one can deliver precise solution especially in our society where exclusive component influences someone's view about beauty. The way of life is one aspect that influences because it sets standards of defining beauty. In the past, the lifestyle implies beauty as being plump consequently it changed into the commonplace exercise of many ladies to advantage weight before getting married. However, these beliefs have modified within the modern times via the advancement of era. Because of human interaction, the cultural choice in defining beauty changed. A general way of defining splendor was set and stimulated by way of fashion thru the pics they task, the way they stroll in addition to the bodily elements that includes the way people get dressed up. This set of trendy have become the trend that almost every body inside the world expected to abide. However, this need to now not be the case due to the fact no one can set a parameter in defining splendor and because putting such parameter might only end result to prejudices.

Therefore, instead of placing standards we should instead assume that we're all beautiful as God created no one ugly. However, it's also our duty to keep and keep the splendor we've. We ought to care approximately how we look due to the fact reputedly splendor plays a huge role in our lives. According to studies, beauty will become pretty commercialized in this modern time. Maybe you surprise why beautiful human beings get hold of greater interest and help, gets better marks and better job in addition to relied on and paid more. However, you have to not aim to be the maximum beautiful character as an alternative you need to develop your power. In doing so, yourself-self belief could be greater in the sort of way which you turn out to be desirable and presentable in the society you are dwelling in. To obtain and enhance your beauty in addition to your health in trendy, you ought to follow the simple guidelines.

• Accept what you are and accept as true with that you are stunning. This is one manner of enhancing your splendor and fitness for your own manner.

• Develop healthful practices because beauty and fitness is going along side every different. To obtain universal beauty you must sell your health and look younger. You will have youthfulness when you have a wholesome frame inclusive of your pores and skin and the entirety that contributes in being lovely. You can gain healthy frame thru consuming balanced diet and ordinary workout.

• Use skin care merchandise in order to farther enhance your power and decrease the marks of weaknesses.

• Make a plan on how you can attain general beauty and begin right.

[maxihealth]

Digital Health As A Basic Human Need – the Dentsu Digital Society Index 2019

We are all Homo informaticus these days, multi-channel, multi-platform beings using digital platforms.

“Computing is not about computers anymore. It is about living,” Nicholas Negroponte wrote in Being Digital.

He said that in 1995.

In that quarter-century since Negroponte made that prescient observation, we come to better understand that being a Digital Society has its upsides and downfalls, alike.

We need a “new needs model” for the digital age, asserts a new report, Human Needs in a Digital World, the 2019 Digital Society Index report from the Dentsu Aegis network.

Taking Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a basic construct, the Index points to four key pillars for this digital update: basic needs, psychological needs, self-fulfilment needs, and societal needs, the research revealed. Dentsu Aegis polled over 43,000 people in 24 countries to gauge the world’s digital citizens’ views on their economic, social, and daily lives and needs.

By pillar:

Basic needs: Only 1 in 2 people believe their basic digital needs are being met. Beyond access to broadband connectivity, this basic need also encompasses peoples’ trust with digital tech. Misuse of personal data is the top driver of distrust in the tech industry around the world, among 64% of global citizens. The second distrust-driver for digital is the fear of automation and not creating enough jobs (among 26%) tied with the pursuit of innovation for its own sake.

Psychological needs: While digital tech can enhance users’ sense and control of health and well-being, only 38% of people believe this need is met.

Self-fulfillment needs: This is the extent wo which people feel they have sound digital education, skills and opportunities which balance their concerns about automation and the impact of artificial intelligene — that is, “robots” taking “my” job. Only 45% of people feel this need is being met.

Societal needs: Here, only 1 in 2 people believe digital tech plays a role in their broader optimism that digital can be a force for good to enhance society-at-large.

Through these four lenses, Dentsu Aegis make several important observations, particular across demographic differences. The top-line is that “the future is not evenly spread,” which is something we’ve already recognized, but bears worth repeating until we address digital inequities. WOmen score lower than men across all four pillars except for basic needs. Younger people score lower on psychological needs, the outcome of being a digital native and negative impacts on mental health and well-being among younger citizens.

Skills are not keeping pace with needs in the larger economy. The pace of technological change has caused anxiety — 80% of people globally said the pace of tech change was too rapid, especially true in India, Brazil, China, Mexico, and Japan, where over 70% of citizens cited this problem. Note that in Finland, Norway, and the US, only about 40% of people say the pace of tech-change is too fast — the opposite end from the top five.

How to respond? Dentsu Aegis has some thoughts:

Brands should segment people based on their needs and motivations, focus on engagement (not the old-school metric of “reach”), and help people do their own versions of “digital detox.”

Businesses should be transparent and open and avoid misusing personal data to engender trust; to nurture workers’ digital skills; and, to promote good use of digital tech in society-at-large. Note that eight in ten people globally would stop doing business with an organization that misused their data — a statistic that is fairly even across the world, from a low of 69% in the Netherlands to a high of 86% in China.

Governments should give people more control over digital innovation, invest in and bolster peoples’ learning digital skills, and focus on inclusion and trust when it comes to digital tech.

Dentsu Aegis assert that, “there’s not just an ethical case for delivering a digital economy that works for all — there’s a strong business case, too.”

As the Digital Society becomes our norm for daily living, trust is the currency that underpins engagement with business, government and civic life, and as always, our social relationships.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  One of the most intriguing data points in this survey is displayed in the third graphic on the bottom bar: the percentage of people who use an app to consult a doctor rather than going in person. See that 40% of citizens in emerging economies do this, compared with 22% of people in developed countries (like the U.S.).

This speaks to the fact that in emerging countries, health citizens are often leap-frogging health access using digital health tools, compared with patients and consumers in wealthier nations which have capital-intensive, bricks-and-mortar built medical care infrastructures.

This is why I so often repeat that broadband connectivity is a social determinant of health. If we can get the last N of 1 person connected to health/care access points, we can deliver primary care, self-care education, and other resources to people regardless of geographic limitations.

A second limiting factor is trust, which is key to health engagement. I was struck by a recently-published chart in eMarketer titled, “Challenges that May Impede Their Ability to Derive Value from their Data-Driven Marketing/Media Initiatives in 2019 According to US Digital Marketers.” These findings came from a study from the Winterberry Group on “the evolving role of audience insight,” conducted in partnership with the IAB Data Center of Excellence and issued on March 5, 2019.

This fourth chart comes from the study, noting that one-half of the respondents said that government regulation or the threat of regulation “may impede” marketers’ ability “to derive value” from data driven programs.

The Winterberry Group raised the privacy laws, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), at the start of 2019 in the company’s Outlook for Data Driven Marketing. They rightly pointed to implications for marketers who could be faced with “grim choices,” facing lawsuits and liabilities for violations of those laws.

There are indeed those legal challenges. And then there are also the reputational risks that can result in hard-dollar losses due to consumers’ and patients’ alienation-by-trust-erosion. In health care, this could translate into a prospective health insurance plan enrollee opting to buy into one plan versus another due to privacy/trust concerns; a consumer leaving one physician practice for another’s with greater attention to data stewardship; or, a patient not enrolling in a clinical trial due to concerns about personal sensitive data protection.

Marketers, and especially those in the health/care ecosystem, should be good actors in light of and in line with Dentsu Aegis’s advice on transparency and openness to build trusting relationships. Healthcare is now embedded into The Digital Society.

The post Digital Health As A Basic Human Need – the Dentsu Digital Society Index 2019 appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

Digital Health As A Basic Human Need – the Dentsu Digital Society Index 2019 posted first on https://carilloncitydental.blogspot.com

[realselfblog]

Digital Health As A Basic Human Need – the Dentsu Digital Society Index 2019

We are all Homo informaticus these days, multi-channel, multi-platform beings using digital platforms.

“Computing is not about computers anymore. It is about living,” Nicholas Negroponte wrote in Being Digital.

He said that in 1995.

In that quarter-century since Negroponte made that prescient observation, we come to better understand that being a Digital Society has its upsides and downfalls, alike.

We need a “new needs model” for the digital age, asserts a new report, Human Needs in a Digital World, the 2019 Digital Society Index report from the Dentsu Aegis network.

Taking Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a basic construct, the Index points to four key pillars for this digital update: basic needs, psychological needs, self-fulfilment needs, and societal needs, the research revealed. Dentsu Aegis polled over 43,000 people in 24 countries to gauge the world’s digital citizens’ views on their economic, social, and daily lives and needs.

By pillar:

Basic needs: Only 1 in 2 people believe their basic digital needs are being met. Beyond access to broadband connectivity, this basic need also encompasses peoples’ trust with digital tech. Misuse of personal data is the top driver of distrust in the tech industry around the world, among 64% of global citizens. The second distrust-driver for digital is the fear of automation and not creating enough jobs (among 26%) tied with the pursuit of innovation for its own sake.

Psychological needs: While digital tech can enhance users’ sense and control of health and well-being, only 38% of people believe this need is met.

Self-fulfillment needs: This is the extent wo which people feel they have sound digital education, skills and opportunities which balance their concerns about automation and the impact of artificial intelligene — that is, “robots” taking “my” job. Only 45% of people feel this need is being met.

Societal needs: Here, only 1 in 2 people believe digital tech plays a role in their broader optimism that digital can be a force for good to enhance society-at-large.

Through these four lenses, Dentsu Aegis make several important observations, particular across demographic differences. The top-line is that “the future is not evenly spread,” which is something we’ve already recognized, but bears worth repeating until we address digital inequities. WOmen score lower than men across all four pillars except for basic needs. Younger people score lower on psychological needs, the outcome of being a digital native and negative impacts on mental health and well-being among younger citizens.

Skills are not keeping pace with needs in the larger economy. The pace of technological change has caused anxiety — 80% of people globally said the pace of tech change was too rapid, especially true in India, Brazil, China, Mexico, and Japan, where over 70% of citizens cited this problem. Note that in Finland, Norway, and the US, only about 40% of people say the pace of tech-change is too fast — the opposite end from the top five.

How to respond? Dentsu Aegis has some thoughts:

Brands should segment people based on their needs and motivations, focus on engagement (not the old-school metric of “reach”), and help people do their own versions of “digital detox.”

Businesses should be transparent and open and avoid misusing personal data to engender trust; to nurture workers’ digital skills; and, to promote good use of digital tech in society-at-large. Note that eight in ten people globally would stop doing business with an organization that misused their data — a statistic that is fairly even across the world, from a low of 69% in the Netherlands to a high of 86% in China.

Governments should give people more control over digital innovation, invest in and bolster peoples’ learning digital skills, and focus on inclusion and trust when it comes to digital tech.

Dentsu Aegis assert that, “there’s not just an ethical case for delivering a digital economy that works for all — there’s a strong business case, too.”

As the Digital Society becomes our norm for daily living, trust is the currency that underpins engagement with business, government and civic life, and as always, our social relationships.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  One of the most intriguing data points in this survey is displayed in the third graphic on the bottom bar: the percentage of people who use an app to consult a doctor rather than going in person. See that 40% of citizens in emerging economies do this, compared with 22% of people in developed countries (like the U.S.).

This speaks to the fact that in emerging countries, health citizens are often leap-frogging health access using digital health tools, compared with patients and consumers in wealthier nations which have capital-intensive, bricks-and-mortar built medical care infrastructures.

This is why I so often repeat that broadband connectivity is a social determinant of health. If we can get the last N of 1 person connected to health/care access points, we can deliver primary care, self-care education, and other resources to people regardless of geographic limitations.

A second limiting factor is trust, which is key to health engagement. I was struck by a recently-published chart in eMarketer titled, “Challenges that May Impede Their Ability to Derive Value from their Data-Driven Marketing/Media Initiatives in 2019 According to US Digital Marketers.” These findings came from a study from the Winterberry Group on “the evolving role of audience insight,” conducted in partnership with the IAB Data Center of Excellence and issued on March 5, 2019.

This fourth chart comes from the study, noting that one-half of the respondents said that government regulation or the threat of regulation “may impede” marketers’ ability “to derive value” from data driven programs.

The Winterberry Group raised the privacy laws, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), at the start of 2019 in the company’s Outlook for Data Driven Marketing. They rightly pointed to implications for marketers who could be faced with “grim choices,” facing lawsuits and liabilities for violations of those laws.

There are indeed those legal challenges. And then there are also the reputational risks that can result in hard-dollar losses due to consumers’ and patients’ alienation-by-trust-erosion. In health care, this could translate into a prospective health insurance plan enrollee opting to buy into one plan versus another due to privacy/trust concerns; a consumer leaving one physician practice for another’s with greater attention to data stewardship; or, a patient not enrolling in a clinical trial due to concerns about personal sensitive data protection.

Marketers, and especially those in the health/care ecosystem, should be good actors in light of and in line with Dentsu Aegis’s advice on transparency and openness to build trusting relationships. Healthcare is now embedded into The Digital Society.

The post Digital Health As A Basic Human Need – the Dentsu Digital Society Index 2019 appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

Digital Health As A Basic Human Need – the Dentsu Digital Society Index 2019 posted first on http://dentistfortworth.blogspot.com