Victoria’s Secret models swear by yoga, green juice and lifestyles so beautifully healthy they can be documented on Instagram daily. But living up to the model standard often seems next to impossible — and one lingerie runway walker is here to tell us that it is.
In a refreshingly candid new interview, model Doutzen Kroes admits that even she doesn’t fulfill the fantasy in real life – “I don’t look like that picture,” she tells The Telegraph:
Despite her healthy-eating messages, Kroes is aware of the extra pressure Instagram puts on young women. “I feel I’m such a big part of that insecurity that some girls might have because of my job, that girls think they have to be that picture. And even boys, they think that that picture exists and it’s so frustrating because I don’t look like that picture — I wake up not looking like that picture.” Occasionally, she will post a picture of herself on a beach without make-up, but she says that people want the fantasy.
And living up to that fantasy isn’t easy. As Doutzen once put it to Stuff magazine, “Sometimes it’s a struggle to keep up with my own photos, where the lighting is perfect, the makeup is done and the images have been retouched. That’s not what I see when I look in the mirror!”
Doutzen for Victoria’s Secret Sport. Photo by @Doutzen on Instagram
It’s a message we’ve heard from models before – as Cindy Crawford often says, “Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford!” — but one that gets lost between the glossy advertisements, shiny magazine covers and retouched photos.
And the fantasy image isn’t all Photoshop. Revealing her pre-show diet for the famed Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, Doutzen admits that the expectation of a perfectly fit figure extends to the runway, where there is no airbrushing at all: “For the show, there is no retouching,” she tells the Telegraph, “We can’t escape from the truth. There are millions of people watching — and even people watching live — so it’s really important to work out a lot, which I do, and I definitely change my diet.”
That includes no alcohol a month before the show and no sugar (although she will allow herself some carbs). And even then, Doutzen, whose “bikini body” is idolized the world over, isn’t a sample size.
“I’m not a sample size at all,” she says. “At some shows I know they have been using very young girls who have not gone into the change of the body yet — no hips, no boobs. I’m 28 and I’ve had a baby. I have a woman’s body, and once in a while you run into the fact that things are not fitting the way they should be.”
But that’s just it — the items should not have to fit that way. Models like Doutzen have to live up to a physical expectation that is incredibly small. “[The standard size for runway models] is a two now, but that would have been a size 00 years ago,” Tim Gunn has said.
Model Crystal Renn agrees, which is why she’s proposed changing the sample size altogether, increasing it from a size 0 to an 8. Chris Gay, president of Marilyn Model Agency, is in Renn’s corner. “The industry standards are ridiculous,” Gay said back in February. “They’re not standards a woman can keep through her life or her career.”
We bet Doutzen would agree. Think enough voices can eventually force some change?
We love models who get real about food:
1 of 19 images - Padma Lakshmi
"The best thing you can do for someone is make them a beautiful plate of food. How else can you invade someone's body without actually touching them?" (Esquire)
2 of 19 images - Twiggy
"In the sixties, car stickers said: 'Forget Oxfam. Feed Twiggy.' But the irony is that I’ve always loved my food – even including wicked things such as sticky toffee pudding and buns. I do my own food shopping – I never let anyone else do it. I always buy organic and try to buy locally and in season. We have a house in Suffolk and I love shopping for food at the markets there." (Delicious Magazine)
3 of 19 images - Chrissy Teigen
Teigen, who has an awesome food-centric blog, once said, "I’m so blessed to have the lifestyle where I get to travel so much, but it’s SO nice to be at home where I’m comfortable in my own kitchen. Whereas my days revolve around being insecure or being mad about something, or sad about something, when I get to actually cook everything goes out the window. It’s like therapy. I’m sure the 10 glasses of wine help too!" (Beauty and the Feast)
4 of 19 images - Kate Moss
Word is that Kate is writing her own Kosher cookbook. "Kate recently cooked Jamie a Jewish meal following kosher techniques from Stasha. It's all she's been talking about," says a source. (Hollywood Rag)
5 of 19 images - Carol Alt
"What I’ve tried to do it make raw accessible to more people...People were asking me, 'How do you stay looking so good? How do you stay so thin? How do you do this, how do you do that?' Airline attendants, especially, were coming up to me on airplanes and saying to me, 'With all the travel you do, and we do the same, we’re so tired, we feel so bad. Every time we see you you’re smiling. How do you do it?' And I say, 'I have to tell you, it’s the raw food.'” (Dawn of a New Day)
6 of 19 images - Shalom Harlow
"I was too thin. I was working all the time, not eating at home. Spaghetti bolognese on planes. Ugh. Now most of my meals I cook for myself with organic ingredients." (Vogue)
7 of 19 images - Heidi Klum
In an interview she said that she maintained her own garden at her old home with lettuce, squash, beans, potatoes, and herbs. She says "it was nice for the kids to see that they could actually grow and eat their own things. (Good Housekeeping)
8 of 19 images - Robyn Lawley
Our favorite plus-size model (and Aussie) Robyn Lawley, who has a gorgeous food blog called Robyn Lawley Eats, once said, "I think [cooking] is the best pleasure in life. I wanted to be a chef my whole life so I am very Nigella Lawson in the kitchen and I will always refuse to give up that beautiful passion just so I can look like a stick insect and fit the mould." (Pony Ryder)
9 of 19 images - Jourdann Dunn
Dunn will show off her cooking skills as part of Jay-Z's YouTube channel. ( http://youtu.be/lyaf1fxF5q4 )
10 of 19 images - Sessilee Lopez
"I started my blog because I have so many friends who always ask me recipes or my opinion on which restaurant to go to. So I guess i did it for them. I've always heard growing up that "good food is one of the greatest luxuries in life" and it’s very true. I love being a foodie because I get to truly appreciate the hard work and passion that people put into a dish. And I love to be able to give my friends a real meal.” (Vogue)
11 of 19 images - Elle Macpherson Naomi Campell and Claudia Schiffer
On the opening of their "Fashion Cafe" in 1995 Claudia Schiffer said: "I love chocolate. We love so many different things...We have french fries, hamburgers on the menu." (Bangor Daily News)
12 of 19 images - Lara Stone
"I'd like to have my own burger place, I'm going to call it Lara's Baps and Buns. There's not a proper good caff here. I want a proper good chips place. They're all too fancy. [My life] is quite fancy, but I still like chips. That's the plan." (Telegraph)
13 of 19 images - Karlie Kloss
Besides making her own cookies, Karlie says she always likes to have food on hand: "Spearmint gum, dark chocolate, and some kind of delicious snack (you can always count on me to have something to eat in my purse, especially backstage—I generally have just about everything except the kitchen sink hidden in my bag)." (Vogue)
14 of 19 images - Sophie Dahl
Sophie is the author of the successful cookbook, Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights and host of the TV cooking series The Delicious Miss Dahl. The granddaughter of children's book author Roald Dahl, she began her career in the spotlight as a high-fashion model and starred in one of the most banned fashion ads of all time.
15 of 19 images - Kristy Hume
" [In five years] I’d like to be living in the country, growing my own food and living as self-sufficiently as possible." (Red online)
16 of 19 images - Cara Delevingne
Cara told Beauty High that in preparation for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, "I had McDonald’s for lunch yesterday and pizza for dinner. I need to eat a lot otherwise I feel faint. I get in the worst moods if I don’t eat. This morning … I was like, I’m going to be a f*** bitch if I don’t eat."
17 of 19 images - Lorraine Pascale
Scouted at 16, Lorraine strutted for big design houses such as Chanel and Versace before finding her passion in baking. Her cookbooks include: Lorraine Pascale's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food, Baking Made Easy, and Home Cooking.
18 of 19 images - Cesar Casier
Male model Cesar Casier of Belgium is also super passionate about cooking, so much so that he enlisted the help of model pals Karlie Kloss, Milla Jovovich and more to launch a cookbook called "Model Kitchen."
19 of 19 images - Elettra Wiedemann
Elettra Wiedemann, daughter of Isabella Rossellini and former model Jonathan Wiedemann, is a Lancome face and the founder of Goodness, a pop-up restuarant serving, healthy locally-sourced food across the street from the tents at New York Fashion Week.
Source:
Huffington Post
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