What Not To Wear

I have always loved this show. Whenver I am channel surfing, and I see Stacy and Clinton shopping with someone, my pulse quickens and my pupils dialate: what will they buy? will she like it? how will she look? what’s going to happen with the hair and makeup?

I always felt a little ashamed of how much I like it, though. I mean, isn’t it vanity? It’s so superficial, clothes and hair and makeup. After all, it’s inner-beauty that matters, and the Bible even says that women should be adorned not with gold and braids, but with a quiet and gentle spirit. . .

Right?

But what if there was actually something profound about the show? There must be a reason why so many women gravitate toward it (it’s been on tv since I was in high school, and Stacy London has countless endorsements).

The show is not just a makeover show. If that was the case, there would be an irrationality behind the fact that many people feel a surge of positive emotion at this show and yet recoil at Extreme Makeover (a show where they gave women plastic surgery as part of their makeover).

On this show, notice Stacy and Clinton never tell anyone that they need to lose or gain weight. The makeup artist never says that anyone needs a nose-job. This is what is profound about the show: they find what is beautiful about each woman and attempt to reveal that beauty in a way that is both alluring and tasteful. They not only attempt to show others her beauty through clothes that act as a frame for a masterpiece, but they attempt to show her that she is a masterpiece. The same goes for the hair and makeup artists- they show her what is lovely about her face and draw attention to it.

This show taps into something deep in the heart of woman- the longing that we have for a beauty to unveil to the world. We long to have a loveliness all of our own to unfurl, and this show recognizes that desire and affirms it. Granted, it only deals with external changes, but in a culture where we have rigorously (and detrimentally) divided the “internal” (soul, spirit, mind) and the “external” (the body), we could use a little refresher on how to unify the two.

We need to re-learn how to see people. The body reveals deep truths about the soul, and the soul of a woman was created to reflect the (dare I say it?) seductive beauty of God, so we need to learn how to see a woman’s body as the revelation of her soul.

Please do not mistake me- I am not in any way endorsing the cheapening of women by reducing their bodies to objects to serve man’s brokeness. The word “seductive” needs to be redeemed; it is to captivate, to draw another toward oneself through desire. Is that not what God is himself? Women are created to mirror this captivating essense of God, and we can reclaim the beauty of our entire being as we embrace and celebrate Beauty. Not the “beauty” that we have reduced down to something nearly unrecognizable through fetishization, but true Beauty that looks at the glory of a whole person, body and soul. Beauty that moves. Beauty that changes the world.

I am still learning this with extreme difficulty, as I battle body-image problems and eating disorder tendencies. It is a slow learning process, laden with wrestling matches with God that sometimes He (unfortunately) lets me win. But sometimes, I behold my face in the mirror and see a flicker of the eternity for which I am intended. The curtain that loosely divides Heaven and Earth is pulled back, and I see. . . beauty.