Choosing my Article for my Double Page Spread

After researching different ideas for articles for my double page spread, I think I am going to choose the no makeup selfie, this is because I think that it is the perfect way of presenting the idea to teenage girls that they should feel happy and comfortable in their own skin. For my article I will use the facts about the campaign and will also take lots of photographs of my friends with no makeup on in the style of a selfie to make the images for the article look authentic.

Callie Thorpe and Danielle Vanier

Callie Thorpe and Danielle Vanier are both fashion bloggers for plus size girls, recently they have looked at the plus size range for high street store New Look. With New Look offering a wider range of clothes than ever before for this size selection it gives larger girls the opportunity to go into a high street store and not have to hunt for something that fits, doing an article on this for my magazine allows plus size girls the chance to feel as valued in the high street stores as everyone else. Also New Look is an affordable store for all which is perfect for my target audience.

Bethany Hamilton

Bethany Hamilton has become a source of inspiration to millions through her story of faith, determination, and hope. Born into a family of surfers on February 8, 1990, on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, Bethany began surfing at a young age. At the age of eight, Bethany entered her first surf competition, where she won both the short and long board divisions. This sparked a love for surf competition within her spirit. At the age of thirteen, on October 31, 2003, Bethany was attacked by a 14-foot tiger shark while surfing off Kauai’s North Shore. The attack left Bethany with a severed left arm. After losing over 60% of her blood, and making it through several surgeries without infection, Bethany was on her way to recovery with an unbelievably positive attitude. Lifeguards and doctors believe her strong water sense and faith in God helped get her through the traumatic ordeal.

Miraculously, just one month after the attack, Bethany returned to the water to continue pursuing her goal to become a professional surfer. In January of 2004, Bethany made her return to surf competition; placing 5th in the Open Women’s division of that contest. With no intention of stopping, Bethany continued to enter and excel in competition. Just over a year after the attack she took 1st place in the Explorer Women’s division of the 2005 NSSA National Championships – winning her first National Title. In 2007, Bethany realized her dream and turned pro. Bethany has since participated in numerous ASP and World Tour Events with a major highlight being a second place finish in the ASP 2009 World Junior Championships.

Since losing her arm, Bethany’s story has been told in hundreds of media outlets and she has been recognized with numerous awards, public appearances, and various speaking engagements. In October 2004, Bethany shared her life story in her autobiography entitled Soul Surfer. Seven years later, the book was made into a film bearing the same title which released in 2011. Further, Bethany was the inspiration behind Becky Baumgartner’s 2007 documentary entitled Heart of a Soul Surfer.

Out of the water, Bethany has grown from a young teenage girl with aspirations of becoming a professional surfer into a twenty-three-year old professional surfer with aspirations of becoming a beacon of inspiration and hope. Through the platform of professional sport, Bethany has been able to touch a large number of people with her message, charitable efforts, and overall spirit. Bethany is involved in numerous charitable efforts, including her own foundation, Friends of Bethany, which supports shark attack survivors, amputees, and serves to inspire others through her life story.

Bethany is a true inspiration for girls with disabilities, the determination and struggle has bought confidence to girls with similar disabilities and reinstate the thought that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. This is the same genre of reinstating confidence that I want to portray in my magazine.

 

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah was born in rural Mississippi in a small low-income family where she had a troubled childhood of rape, abuse, child pregnancy and tragedy. Through sheer grit and determination she overcame all odds, fighting her way through school and college to end up with a career in communication. Her talk show, the Oprah Winfrey show is possibly the most popular in the world and it is all due to her honest personality, straightforward style and general likability.

 

Oprah has overcome the odds and become a woman that a lot of women look up to and aspire to, therefore her story from hell to fame is the confidence young girls who have suffered similarly that things do get better, which is exactly the message I want my magazine to portray.

Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore shot to fame as the little girl in E.T. and shortly after experienced a number of personal setbacks with drugs and alcohol in her early teens. Unlike most others with her background, she overcame all her personal problems to emerge as a top-notch film star, director and producer, greatly respected in the film fraternity.

The number of teenage girls doing drugs and drinking alcohol is rising rapidly with many becoming addicted and seeing no life worth living past the addiction, Drew is the shining example young girls in this or similar situations need, a glimmer of hope that the sober life is much better than the path they are taking, I hope by publishing an article such as this it will reach out to my selected target audience.

Skin Camouflage

According to the British Association of Dermatologists, 15% of the UK’s population a year seek help from their doctors for a skin condition. As many as 30% of these patients also experience psychological distress due to skin disfigurement, this will affect their quality of life and ability to participate in work and social activities, which in turn will affect their relationships with friends and family members.

For a teenage girl who has a sever skin condition such as scars, acne, psoriasis and eczema, their confidence in their appearance will be knocked, however putting makeup such as foundation and concealer will only irritate the skin and make their condition worse, now with skin camouflage they will be able to feel confident in their skin again as it will not irritate the skin and let it breath.

Doing an article on skin camouflage does go against what I am trying to portray with girls feeling confident in their own skin, however with severe skin conditions there is no reason for girls to no do whatever they can to feel confidence within themselves, because if you look good on the outside you will feel so much better on the inside, and that is the purpose of my magazine, feeling good on the inside.

  

J.K. Rowling

 K Rowling is a single mother and is the author of the Harry Potter series of books. She was rejected 12 times by different publishers before a small publishing house finally accepted it. The book went on to become an international phenomenal with millions of followers of all age groups. With just the power of her pen, J K Rowling went from near poverty to becoming a billionaire many times over.

JK Rowling is the perfect woman to help boost young girl’s self-esteem by showing them that they should never give up on what they desire, if they set their minds to it, then anything is possible! This story about JK Rowling would be perfect to feature in my magazine as it shows a woman who set her mind on something and wouldn’t stop at anything until she achieved her desired goal.

Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato is an extremely famous pop star and actress in America. Recently she has opened up about having an eating disorder when she was younger, after being harassed by kids at her school for being "fat", she started compulsively overeating at a very young age and due to the harassment almost stopped eating altogether at the age of 12.

Eating Disorders are serious and complex problems that affect millions of young men and women all over the world. But so many people don't understand them. For example it is a common misconception that eating disorders are just about food. butt actually they are so much more than that.Eating disorders often stem from feelings of low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, or in Demi’s case, being teased and ridiculed for her weight. She also believes that a big contributing factor to these feelings is the pressure that’s out there to meet impossible standards.

As many models presented in magazines are of an unhealthy size 0, it’s important for girls not to feel pressured into thinking that they must look like that, because that is an unrealistic image. Demi speaking out about her eating disorder gives many young teenage girls the confidence to seek help if they have or know someone who is going through a similar situation. This is the right type of influential confidence I want my magazine to be about.

 

Adele vs. Karl Lagerfeld

In early 2012 Adele was labelled as “fat” by Karl Lagerfeld, Adele simply responded by saying: “I’ve never wanted to look like models on the cover of magazines…I represent the majority of women and I’m very proud of that.”

She went on to say: “I’ve never seen magazine covers or music videos and been like ‘I need to look like that to be a success,’” the talented Brit explained. “I don’t want to be some skinny mini with my tits out. I really don’t want to do it and I don’t want people confusing what it is that I’m about.”

In a world where anorexic runway models are applauded and women feel insane pressure to look like Hollywood stars, it’s refreshing for someone as talented and successful as Adele to embrace herself. Not only is she secure with who she is and how she looks, she has no desire to drop 20 pounds or suffer through a diet. She’s content with what she brings to the table and that is exactly the message I intend for my magazine to portray to teenage girls.
 

Adele 1 - Karl Lagerfeld 0

Katie Piper

In 2008 Katie Piper was the victim of an acid attack which was arranged by her ex-boyfriend and carried out by an accomplice. The attack left Katie blind in one eye and her face was scarred. Prior to the attack Katie had a full time career in the media as a model and television presenter.

 

After the attack Katie left the limelight out of fear of what others might think and say to her appearance, however in 2009 Katie decided to take the brave step back into the limelight to increase awareness for burn victims. Her Chanel 4 documentary Katie: My Beautiful Face was first aired in October 2009; it has subsequently been repeated on several occasions, made available for online on-demand access and sold internationally.

More recently, Katie has appeared in follow-up series for Channel 4, released a best-selling autobiography, and had a regular column in weekly magazines; however, she primarily works for her charitable organisation the Katie Piper Foundation.

Katie’s bravery has managed to give back the loss of confidence to many other burn victims, Katie is not afraid nor embarrassed of her appearance and has taken the tragedy to what happened to her in her stride and helped others regain the confidence and self-esteem lost to them through burn scars.

The confidence that Katie has given to others through her own story is very inspiring and fits with the basis of my magazine about restoring confidence lost in young girls and letting them know that they should not be ashamed of who they are or what they look like.

No Makeup Selfie

As part of the latest campaign for raising money ad awareness for cancer research women of all ages have been taking a photograph of themselves with no makeup on and posting it on the internet with the plea to donate some money to cancer research uk.

This campaign has taken the women of the UK by storm and has even ventured out into the world of celebrities, with stars such as Millie mackintosh and holly Willoughby taking part in the attempt to raise some money.

The trend started on the social networking site Facebook and quickly moved on to twitter, the person then having posted the photo would then nominate others to do the same. This campaign has attracted so much attention it has been appearing on the news and in newspapers. The campaign has so far been a complete success raising over £2million.

By doing an article on this for my magazine would be perfect as it shows so many people being brave enough to show off their natural beauty in aid of such an amazing cause therefore hopefully giving my target audience an extra boost in confidence also.

Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham is a very famous actress in America and is most known by an audience for her sitcom, Girls. The sitcom is watched by an audience of girls around the ages of 16-30. Therefore a large proportion of her viewing audience is teenage girls. So when Dunham was due to appear as the front cover of Vogue magazine it was to marks a huge landmark in her career.

However, recently the images have been leaked much to many peoples dismay and it is clear that the images have clearly been photo shopped. This is not that much of a surprise to the general public, except that they have been so vastly edited to the extent that her left arm is missing in one of the images of her laying across a bed. Also the cover shot is not of her entire body just of her portrait which is common when high end magazines so not to show an entire body.

Lena Dunham is a woman that society would class as a larger woman, therefore for her to be on the front cover of vogue, it is a big deal in the movement of fashion and beauty magazines using images of larger models. Consequently by her doing this it would give many of her fans of a larger size a boost in confidence and self-esteem. However with the photograph being so heavily photo shopped, it completely contradicts the idea of this.

 

This reinforces my idea that the photographs will not be photo shopped in my magazine to the extent of changing the models appearance, therefore this will not give the audience an unrealistic image that they believe is what society thinks is ideal, instead I will only enhance the colour to give my images a more professional feel and allow girls that boost in self-esteem they need by presenting them with realistic and not digitally enhanced model that they believe that is what society expects them to look like.

Bear Faced Campaign

The bear faced campaign is a campaign run by BBC children in need. The idea of the campaign is for celebrities to be photographs with no make-up on and a paw print on the face. The campaign was a massive success and raised lots of money for the charity.

The campaign caught such attention that is featured in vogue magazine, featuring model Suki Waterhouse. Suki being a model went against model conventions of being photographed with no make-up on, by vogue featuring this article it doesn't fit their ethos as they regularly show images of beautiful, very highly made up women in expensive clothes, going against their house style.

My magazine however an article such as this would fit my house style and is something my target audience could relate to. Article such as this shows women that even celebrities have flaws and reinforce my argument that nobody is perfect, everyone is different and that confidence is key.