Top Model Cameron Russell: ‘Looks aren’t Everything’

If we had the opportunity to discuss our physical characteristics with our creator, chances are most of us would ask to look like super models. So when a Victoria Secret model, who has been on the cover of Italian Vogue, modeled for the big names like Prada, Armani, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, tells you looks aren’t everything, it may be worth listening.

Cameron Russell is a 26-year-old American model who was scouted at the age of 15. She was signed at Ford Model Agency and by 16 was earning more money than her highly successful parents. In her 9minute Ted talk Cameroun provides an honest narrative about what it means to be beautiful. She admits that while she has (and continues) to benefit from societies current definition of beauty (pretty, skinny, white woman) she is ‘insecure’ because she has to think about what she looks like every day.

According to her, image is powerful but it is also superficial. she adds that the images we see of her in magazines are not pictures of her but are constructions by professionals and that people are paying a cost for what they look like and not who they are.

Cameron’s video caused a stir in the fashion world but I hope it does a little more than that for those in and outside of the beauty industry. How many times have women and men compared themselves to these immaculately portrayed constructions of beauty? How many times have we felt less than human because we cannot measure up to some ideal put forward by magazines, media or publicists? How many times have we equated our sense of self worth with our size, height or colour? Towards the end of the video, Cameron asserts that models are probably the most physically insecure women on the planet. Who would have thought that the people we are striving to emulate feel the same way we do about our bodies?

The summation is plain. Beauty, defined by whoever, does not mean happiness or equate to an idealised sense of self worth. Being a certain colour, height or shape does not automatically translate to feeling better of yourself. We are all born flawed (some more obvious than most). Real beauty, is being able to love and accept who you are. Self worth is realising you are worthy just because you were born. Happiness comes by laughing at your imperfections and living anyway.