From Necklines to Hemlines, Studying Empowerment Through Fashion

The women who lived during the Victorian era and other periods throughout history physically suffered to achieve and sustain an ideal of beauty that was only attainable through extraordinary means. Are women of today still suffering to attain an ideal of beauty that is artificial, and if they are, what price are they paying?

These were just some of the issues explored at a one-day conference hosted by Liberty Hall Museum and Kean College on Friday, May 20, 2011. More than 100 young women from high schools throughout the area attended the day-long event titled, "Happy, Healthy & Whole: A Conference to Empower Young Women."

Attendees were students from Mother Seton High School in Clark, the Union Vocational-Technical School in Scotch Plains and Oak Knoll and Kent Place in Summit.  

Through a series of lectures and workshops, the young women explored a range of topics related to body image, self-esteem, fashion and beauty in the media, peer pressure, eating disorders, bullying, and positive ways to react to pressures through nutrition and yoga and meditation for stress management.

“We hoped to get girls thinking about and being aware of the images they see in the media about fashion, beauty, femininity and a woman's ‘role’ in society and how these images affect their emotional, mental and physical heath,” said Susan Garino, Coordinator of Historic Structures at Liberty Hall Museum at Kean University. 

Garino said the conference was an outgrowth of a fashion exhibit at the Museum called "Stitches in Time: Three Centuries of Necklines, Hemlines and Everything in Between."

The show featured dresses dating back to the late 1700s, all of which were stored in Liberty Hall Museum by various Kean family members. During the course of researching the collection, Terry Golway, Director of the Kean Center for American History came across a quote by Christian Dior whose designs were included in the collection.

Dior said, “A waistline of more than seventeen and a half inches on a woman is repulsive.”

Golway said he was taken aback by the quote.

“I thought, here we are showing all of these beautiful dresses from the past, but there is an underlying issue that we should address,” said Golway.

Golway suggested that a public policy program be created in response to Dior’s quote and all of the other pressures by society and the media placed upon young women.

Golway, who is the father of a teenage girl, said, “I guess my daughter inspired me to make the connection between the quote and the possibility of a program to address these issues. You can’t help but notice the images that bombard these young women. They need to be better equipped to handle the pressure.”

Garino enthusiastically ran with the idea and created the conference.

She said that they began thinking about all of the ways in which teenage girls are manipulated, exploited, and otherwise tortured by images in the media and elsewhere.

“Body image, peer pressure, bullying, and other issues can be traced to this terrible pressure placed on young women to conform to a certain unattainable ideal of beauty,” said Garino.

“I think awareness is the key word here.  If you just make someone aware it gives them a strength and empowerment and it's a tool they can take with them anywhere.   I think we were very successful at this,” said Garino. 

One 15 year old attendee named Natalie, who requested that her last name not be included, said, “I think that there is pressure from many different aspects of today’s culture and not just media like many people say. Many times the pressure is based on people that I see every day and not just from looking at pictures of beautiful models and celebrities.”

She said, “I think that the media photoshops and edits photos of celebrities to make them appear perfect in order to set a ‘standard’ for beauty. Women then feel the need to fulfill this standard in order to be accepted in society.”

One of the sessions focused on how today’s advertising is chock full of beautiful women who don’t actually exist in reality anywhere, because they come alive only through the fine art of photo retouching.

Through a series of video clips and still images, the conference attendees were able to get a glimpse at the techniques used to manipulate society’s concept and expectation of beauty.

“The photo shop presentation was amazing. I was shocked and surprised to see the reality behind our magazine covers,” said Janine Skorski, a resident of New Providence who works in sales and serves as a gymnastics coach and personal trainer for over 20 years.

“Working with teenage girls and young women, I can appreciate the need for conferences such as these. The goal of this conference was to empower young women. It was to build their confidence and increase their awareness about how the media influences our society,” said Skorski.

Reacting to a video that was shown at the beginning of the conference, Skorski said she was surprised and amazed at what women had to endure throughout the ages in order to present an ideal figure.

 "I try to teach girls to feel good about themselves and be proud of who they are. If you have an internal confidence you will make better choices. You are less likely to be affected by unhealthy influences,” said Skorski.

The keynote speaker who has requested that her identity not be published, spoke about her personal journey with self-esteem issues that brought her to the brink of suicide at the age of 15.

“I had the perfect life on the outside. I was pretty, smart, came from a well-to-do family, I was even in what was considered ‘the in crowd’ – but inside I felt I had no value. Nothing I did was good enough,” she said.

She explained that her value and self-esteem was constantly based on other people’s opinions and expectations of her.

She shared with the young women the need to listen to one’s inner voice and take the time to get to know who they really are and then honor that and make choices based upon their own set of beliefs and values. 

Julia Torsiello, a resident of New Providence and high school senior said she related very much to what the keynote speaker had to say.

“Anyone could relate to her story. It was really nice to see that we all go through similar things and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Torsiello.

A variety of sessions were led by facilitators including: Dr. Lori R. Ippolito, who has served as Clinical Director of Philmore Associates since 1983.  She specializes in the clinical treatment of anxiety and stress disorders; Roni Benson, co-author of the anti-bullying book -- Bully Frog, winner of the 2004 National Legacy Book Award; Penny Cappuccino, registered dietitian at Trinitas Hospital in Elizabeth led a workshop in nutrition; and Susan Garino led yoga and meditation workshops and a discussion and demonstration of media coverage of body-imaging for women. 

“We received amazing reactions from the girls.  They were really outraged that certain industries would try to manipulate them in certain ways.  I saw lots of mouths dropping open during the media awareness presentation and lot's of ‘On my God’ type reactions,” said Garino. 

She said, “I know that new friendships were made that day between girls from different schools which is really awesome to see young women connecting and supporting each other.  All of the teachers, counselors and chaperones that I spoke with also want to come back next year and bring more girls.” 

Garino said, “We would love for this to become an annual event and have already begun discussing the possibilities.”

For further information about future conferences, contact Susan Garino at 908-527-0400 or sgarino@kean.edu.

For more information about Liberty Hall Museum, visit the Web site at: http://www.kean.edu/libertyhall/