PUBLISHED! When I gathered some awesome likeminded gals around me to collaborate on an idea to celebrate the diversity of the beautiful women in our Pin Up Scene for International Women’s Day, creating magic was the result and the bonus was that we were published in an international magazine! VIGOUR is a Canadian Lifestyle/Fashion Magazine that picked our story up and were so blown away they put us on the cover! Could not be more proud of this little project!
How it came together: IWD2022 #Breakthebias… An idea, a zoom catch up with Kara from Firemark PhotoMedia a chat to my sister Veronica Neave to write the words, approaching two of my favourite “Strong, Feminine, Tattooed Pin Up Models” and bringing the most amazing Milliner and MUAH assistant on board and we were off. I had the visions in my head and set about pulling my extensive vintage wardrobe apart and putting all the looks together.
About the wardrobe: I have this extensive Vintage wardrobe of the most exquisite originals that I don’t always get to wear anymore, some don’t fit, some too fragile and some haven’t had the occasion to get out for the past 3 years so I had lots to work with, I also have a husband who collects too so for the last look I pulled my Husbands wedding suit out and worked that up, this has to be one of my favourite looks.
#diversity #project #photographer
The theme in my mind was being Stoically Feminine. We wanted to share the glamour of the 1940’s but also the strength of women at that time also.. I think we nailed it, what do you think?
THE TEAM:
MUAH, Creative, Wardrobe/Styling by Me: Chrissy Keepence @Lindycharmschool
MUAH Assistant: Monique Galvin
Photographer – Kara from @Firemarkphotomedia
Models: Ruby Alabaster & Bunny Boulevard
Milliner: Wendy Diggles from @Bellefoliedesigns
Original Story/Words: Veronica Neave
#creative #fashion
IWD 2022 (Break the bias):
The Stoically Feminine: Oxymoron or Tautology
I recently read that Judith Love Cohen, an American aerospace engineer, went into labour whilst trying to problem solve the safe return of the crippled Apollo 13 using the Abort-Guidance System that she helped create. She took a print out of what she was working on to the hospital, called her boss to tell him she had solved it, then gave birth to her son, the Hollywood actor Jack Black.
The fact that a woman is capable of growing and birthing an entire human being has to be one of our most feminine superpowers. It has always fascinated me that this most quintessential female ability is also the most physically brutal experience, one which only women have the capacity to endure. The softness of a mother’s love juxtaposed with the stoicism required to face childbirth is a snapshot of the essence of what it is to be female: stoically feminine.
We are experts at it, whether we become mothers or not. Our bodies are naturally more delicate than a man’s but we have a ferocity within that belies that soft exterior, we have an indefatigable aptitude for endurance, emotional and psychological endurance. This aptitude for stoicism is both natural and “man-made” it grows stronger the more we are repressed and underestimated.
I am fortunate to be born in a time where the stoicism of my fore-mothers has paved a sturdy path towards an unbiased future. The path was forged in both stilettos and boots and in 2022 it really does feel like the world is starting to make room for the wonderful contradiction that a woman is both soft and strong, that we can wear pants with a delicate silk blouse, that our breasts can be a visual treat and a nourishing food sack.
We must continue to move away from the bias that to be female is to only be soft and fragile, there is nothing fragile about pushing a human being out through a very small birth canal, because to think of women as only soft predisposes us to the patriarchal abuses that come from the notion that we are pliable, needing to be protected, able to be broken.
I love my true feminine nature that I know to be at once loving and nurturing, and ruthless and unrelenting. We can’t all be Judith Love Cohen and simultaneous give birth whilst saving the world but we can be beautifully stoically feminine.
Veronica Neave Email: [email protected] Mobile: 0401276918
