Fashion magazines get a bad rap when it comes to affecting the impressionable minds of young girls. They are evil. They are ridiculous. They are the serial killers of female self-esteem. Of course, like all people, companies and publications, sometimes they do get it wrong. Photoshop disaster wrong. Lollipop-head rail-thin model wrong. But for one ten-year-old tomboy, fashion magazines got it really right.
There is a place on the west side of Chicago that is a Midwestern version of the town from Leave It To Beaver. The Irish and Polish traits prevalent in Chicago concentrate themselves in the genetic makeup of the suburbanite children in town. At least that’s how it looked to the ten-year-old tomboy. Invisible blonde hairs reigned on the faces, legs and arms of everyone she knew. Strangely enough, it wasn’t a blonde who made her uncomfortably aware of this fact. Of all people, it was Miguel, the Mexican exchange student who leaned over his chair in fifth grade math class one day to inform her that she had really dark hair. Like really dark, he emphasized. And then ever so kindly (that is, very rudely) suggested that she shave her legs. Had the girl taken a step back, she might have realized that this boy, this black-haired boy, the one doling out wisdom and advice on how to handle womanhood, was a kid with a mustache who sold bootleg copies of Pixar movies and bragged about being a nationally ranked bull fighter. But she didn’t. Instead, she sat there in math class suddenly feeing very different.
The tomboy was me. I played basketball, had dark hair and probably could’ve been shaving my shin fur since I was five. On my appearance, I received one compliment and one compliment only for the first decade of my life. (There may have been more, but my self-consciousness zeroed in exclusively on this one. Unfortunately.) It was a compliment that didn’t help the beauty battle I was waging on my hair. (My “like extremely dark” hair.) On every errand I ran with my mom, every family party, and at every turn there was somebody who’d bend over until their eyes met mine to say, “You have great eyebrows” before turning to my mom and saying, “Just like Brooke Shields.” I may not have used these exact words, by my thoughts went something like, “F-ing Brooke Shields, bane of my existence.” I would just stand there with my blood boiling as I forced out a heartless “thank you” because my parents yelled at me when I didn’t. It would be years before I realized that Brooke Shields was an internationally famous and gorgeous supermodel. To me, she was just a reason for everybody to feel free to talk about my eyebrows all the time, to point them out, to touch them, to warn me never to mess with them. Even to a ten-year-old, it felt like the kind of compliment someone issues when there’s nothing else to comment on. Like saying that a rude, ugly woman with nice hair has “really nice hair.” To me, those were my eyebrows. And I hated them.
For a long time, it was me versus them. They succeeded only in making me miserable. They were my enemies. Imagine being attached to your enemies! They made simple childhood things horrifying — like caricature artists, having trendy magnetic mirrors inside your locker, and drawing art class self portraits. Even smiley faces — a universally understood symbol for all that is happy, positive, and friendly — lack eyebrows. While most ten-year-olds were sneaking cookies before dinner, I was sneaking into my mom’s bathroom when she wasn’t looking to steal tweezers and tiny scissors in hopes of freeing my face from its ugliness with the angst-driven goal of fitting in. I was apparently trying to pioneer the “no eyebrow” look long before The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. My mom would sometimes catch me and always warn me never to do it again.
“They might not grow back!” she’d say.
“Your eyebrows are perfect!” she’d say.
“Being able to have defined eyebrows and eyelashes even after jumping into a pool is a luxury most women would kill for!” she’d say.
Whatever, mom.
That all changed the day I found an unlikely ally. Boredom (or fate?) drove me to my mom’s magazine basket. I had no use for the interior design and aspirational architecture mags she had piled as high as me, but there was one other, a magazine almost the size of my entire torso and I was intrigued. I picked it up and read the cover: W. I opened it and started flipping through the pages. Almost immediately, I was exposed to the most shocking images I had ever seen in my decade-long life.
No, not toplessness or steamy perfume ads, but a six-page (SIX PAGE!!) beauty spread praising the “bold brow” and its in-ness. It was called something like “Black Magic” or “Black Is Back” or something ridiculous, but that didn’t matter. My eyes were widening and my head was exploding as I hungrily turned the pages spattered with gigantic images of thick black eyebrows. Beautiful blonde models, auburn-haired models, brunettes like me, all with their smoldering eyes peering out under big bold, filled-in exaggerated brows. I genuinely could not believe it. I had never considered that these things on my face, the ones I had long fantasized about getting rid of, could somehow be desirable. But here they were. On beautiful women. And they were just like mine. Slowly, my angst and self-loathing began to melt away. What was this magical thing? Where had it been all my life?
For the record, my eyebrows did grow back, mom (with a vengeance, I might add) and by the time they did, I was finally glad about it. Ever since my moment of self-discovery and acceptance in a pile of magazines, I’ve felt that the fashion people of the world were on my team, in my corner. Guardians of strange beauty, lovers of all looks vaguely alien (Kate Moss), intriguingly androgynous (Agyness Deyn), and decidedly different (Brooke Shields!!). They have the models, collections, and fashion spreads to show for their open attitudes and broad definition of beauty. In the world of fashion, you can have thick dark eyebrows. You can have invisible eyebrows. You can dress like a robot in metallic pants if you want. You can wear capes, seven inch heels, sheer dresses, or gowns that weigh 100 pounds if you want. In fashion, I had found an alternate universe that I felt comfortable in and it was full of people who put me at ease. It always felt to be worlds away from the harsh comparisons drawn in high school hallways or the obnoxious observations of boys like Miguel.
Now, fashion feels to me like one of the great loves of my life (If I had amicably broken up and remained friends with one of the great loves of my life). It’s not the center of my world and I don’t hesitate to criticize or poke fun at the industry every once in a while, but at the end of the day, it is and always will be an entity that makes me feel safe, confident, and empowered. Besides, contrary to the set-up of every romantic comedy and high school television series, it didn’t have to be a guy to welcome me with open arms and make my version of different feel beautiful and wonderful, it could just be an outdated copy of W from my mom’s pile of fashion magazines. And as far as this season goes — I hear black is back.
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