-Nino Genua
One of my favorite people to follow on social media is Mayim Bialik. Her online presence is intelligent and thoughful and positive. This week, I spotted something on her feed I just had to share.
This is the #RadicalBeautyProject, which seeks to expand the standards of beauty and to help people see models with Down Syndrome as beautiful. It’s a wonderful collaboration of Zebedee Model Management and more than forty photographers around the world. According to the project, people with Down Syndrome are regularly discounted and all but ignored in the worlds of art and fashion. This lack of representation is likely due to misinformation and fear associated with working with models that are “special.” Debunking the myths about the syndrome and showing the models in a favorable, fashionable light is the project’s mission.
“Radical Beauty is about challenging opinions and understandings of beauty in contemporary culture. It is a fashion and art photography project blurring boundaries between disciplines, and working to provide an alternative vision for beauty today.”
-Radical Beauty Mission Statement
Now in its third year, the project is getting results. Since the start of #RadicalBeautyProject, Zebedee Management’s Down Syndrome models have been hired by Vogue, London Fashion Week, Mercedes Benz, and Benefit cosmetics, to name a few.
You can follow Vais’s #RadicalBeautyProject on the project website and Instagrahttps://www.instagram.com/radicalbeautyproject/m, and you can check out all of Zebedee Management’s diverse models on their website. And I recommend you subscribe to Mayim Bialik on social media. She’s a wonder!
Share:
My OBT 
March 24, 2019 at 10:00 am
I’m really not sure what I think about this but I do have some concerns.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 24, 2019 at 11:39 am
I’m intrigued. What concerns?
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 24, 2019 at 2:55 pm
Beauty and fashion aside I think some of this is almost making fun of them. Pandering to their need to reconized.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 24, 2019 at 8:08 pm
I know that this word doesn’t describe you, so please don’t take offense, but that assumption feels a little cynical to me. I found the photos genuinely beautiful, and I can’t imagine that I’m the only one. And if our society is evolving enough to expand our definitions of beauty, I don’t think it’s pandering (any more than usual, I mean) for the fashion and advertising agencies to include people with Down Syndrome and other disabilities. Maybe I am being naïve, but I want to believe it represents progress.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 24, 2019 at 10:22 am
For such a long time, the definition of beauty has been very narrow – it might shift a little from decade to decade but within that parameter it strikes me that it is always pretty homogenous. I am sure the motivations of the beauty and fashion industries are pretty cynical and are simply a response to reading their contemporary markets but I am OK with that if it means we get more diverse and inclusive representation and messaging about beauty.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 24, 2019 at 11:51 am
Absolutely. I have no illusions about the motivations of the fashion and beauty brands who are being more inclusive in their choice of models. But if societal pressure can make change for the better, I’m all for it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 25, 2019 at 12:45 am
I think these are stunning, in the best possible way!
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 25, 2019 at 6:12 am
I thought so, too!
LikeLike