With much buzz around Disney’s new live action version of Beauty and the Beast, starring equality advocate Emma Watson, it is time to take a look at one company who is marketing their clothing in celebration of the film.
Gap Kids has launched a clothing line entitled “Belle,” which showcases clothing for young girls inspired by and collaborated with Disney.
On their website, a promotion for the clothing line states, “Fearless Beauty: Celebrate strength and bravery in our special Disney Beauty and the Beast collection.” If that was not reason enough to celebrate the new line, Gap Kids took their marketing strategy one step further.
Their Instagram page is full of videos of young girls wearing the clothing line with the caption #FearlessBeauty below it. Each video showcases a different young girl explaining what confidence means to her.
Perhaps the video that strikes viewers the most is the following one of April, an 11-year-old girl.
April suffers from Vitiglio, a skin disease that according to Mayo Clinic causes “the loss of skin color in blotches.” However, April is not letting her disease stop her from having confidence.
“I’ve taken 4.3 million selfies,” she said in a video. “I feel like when you have confidence, you’re not scared…So, confidence is courage.”
With companies like Gap campaigning to show girls of all shapes and sizes being beautiful in their own bodies, it is time that we are reminded that every person is beautiful no matter what they look like on the outside. We should not let what society has deemed “imperfections” derail us from seeing the sheer beauty in others.
Beauty is NOT only skin deep. It is time we, as caring individuals, take back what it means to beautiful, which is what Gap is showcasing in their aforementioned campaign. We need to stand up to society and reject its impossible beauty standards, because every person deserves to feel beautiful and to be comfortable in their own skin. Society should not have a say in whether or not a person is perceived as beautiful. You are beautiful.
The Gap is right: We need to be fearless in redefining what it means to be beautiful so that future generations never have to go through the pain of feeling uncomfortable in their own skin. Let’s be fearless together.
Featured Image by Mike Mozart on Flickr
Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
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