14 Valentines; First Valentine: Body Image; Enchanted fic
It's that time of the year - 14 Valentines. Today's theme is body image.
My own offering is an Enchanted fanfic. For those of you who haven't seen this movie, watch it! It is adorable and sweet and pretty damn awesome. Quick disclaimer: I don't own Enchanted or the characters of Enchanted. I just like playing with them sometimes.
The second year Andalasia Fashions has been open, it comes under attack for promoting unrealistic body images for young girls.
“Unrealistic?” Giselle, with the body of a fairy tale princess, doesn’t understand the concept.
Robert sighs and rubs his forehead. “Don’t worry, there’s no legal standing for it. We’ll take care of it quietly.”
Giselle stays after hours with all the lights on in her workroom, looking at the dresses she’s cut and sewn into life. They’re frothy and light, made for sun and laughter; their designs are whimsical, meant to emphasize beauty rather than any arbitrary notion of sexiness. Giselle palms the slick fabric. Unrealistic? Maybe, to think that in this city in this world, a girl could look like a princess. But why not bring a little fantasy into reality? What could be so wrong with that?
:::
On the news that night a woman being interviewed says, “My daughter wanted so badly to fit into that dress. She wanted to be pretty like all the other girls. But she’s not a size six, which is the largest size that boutique carries, and there is something deeply wrong about that.”
It’s like Giselle is watching a horror movie. She can’t look away. Her hand is to her mouth and her eyes fill wide and unbelieving with tears - much as does the woman’s on the television, her eyes full with angry tears.
“Let’s watch a movie,” Robert announces, moving quickly to turn off the television.
Giselle stops him with one hand. “No, Robert,” she says. “I think I need to hear this.”
Morgan is sitting next to her, sweet wonderful Morgan, soft and cuddled to her side. Giselle doesn’t know what size her step-daughter is, only that she’s beautiful.
:::
Instead of going in to work the next day, Giselle walks. She doesn’t always wear dresses or skirts: today she wears jeans, which she thought were strange and unpleasantly rough trousers, but which have since begun to grow on her. They’re better for walking long distances, as are the boots instead of heels on her feet, the wrap top and light jacket, the pins holding her hair out of her face.
Robert offers to walk with her, but Giselle has to do some things on her own, for herself. In Andalasia she had been taught her independence would end once she married and she had been, if not happy about this prospect, at least content with it. Now she insists on her own way in her own time when she feels it to be warranted. Robert smiles at her, proud and stupidly in love, and she smiles back.
Giselle walks and looks at the stream of humanity that walks with her. It’s strange to think she once noticed everything because it was all so incredibly new. She’s become jaded. What passes for her as ‘jaded’, at any rate.
The bodies of the women she sees at first are all tall and thin and perfectly coiffed. They look as if they could almost be of the race that lives north to Andalasia, a people renowned for glacial and perfect beauty. The more Giselle walks, however, the more variety appears. A homeless woman (who she gives the muffin she bought for breakfast) is squat and sallow, ill-health apparent on her face. A trio of tiny pixie like women with shining black hair, smaller than Giselle thought any full grown person could be.
Further, and Giselle is paying even more close attention, seeing women she hadn’t noticed before. One wears a suit, despite her lush curves, her face androgynous and arrogant. One is large, has so much more mass and sheer presence - not only physical presence, but that magnetism particular to empresses. They’re all beautiful. They’re all canvases she wants to clothe.
:::
The public relations statement released to the angry group of parents attacking Andalasia Fashions invites them, one and all, to come to the boutique for specialty fittings for their daughters. It makes a promise to commit to expanding the design line to suit all body types.
Grumbling persists, and some keep their children from going to the boutique, believing an exercise in humiliation awaits them there. Those that do go feel their ire melted. The woman who is so young to be the owner and designer is too sincere to be disbelieved when she clasps her hands together and looks at the girls who stand before her.
“Oh my,” she says. “You’re all so lovely, I can’t wait to start.”
:::
They look like princesses, every one.