- 36 minutes ago
Requested by: Taylor Bryant
On: 2/23/16 at 10:13AM
Link: http://uverse.com/watch/dk___dk_exc_bz0215_feb16.mp4
On: 2/23/16 at 10:13AM
Link: http://uverse.com/watch/dk___dk_exc_bz0215_feb16.mp4
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:01My name is Rebecca Marine, and I am a disabled model.
00:14Growing up, I was looking at these magazines and not seeing anyone who looked like me.
00:19It's always been this 5'9", skinny girl.
00:22That represents such a small portion of people out there.
00:26Homogenous beauty is not a real thing. I don't want to see a row of clones.
00:32I've had the privilege to work with the greatest talent in the world.
00:36We're saying diversity, inclusion, evolution. Will brands buy it?
00:40We're going to find out.
00:43I am Julia Mercado.
00:44I'm Rebecca Marine.
00:46I'm Victoria Modesta.
00:47I'm Denise Bidot.
00:48I'm Hari Neff.
00:49I'm Liz Black.
00:50I'm Beatrix Oz.
00:51I'm Ivan Bard.
00:52I am Pat Cleveland.
00:55We're all rooting for each other.
00:56It's the most refreshing thing that's happened to fashion.
01:17My name is Julia Mercado, and I am a model and an editor.
01:21I grew up in Upper West Side in New York City.
01:24I was very, very adventurous.
01:26I loved to get myself in every little thing that I can get myself into.
01:31My mom and my dad kind of introduced me to the fashion industry.
01:35My mom was a seamstress, and my dad used to work at a shoe store.
01:40So I knew a lot about labels.
01:42I knew a lot about materials.
01:44I knew how to sew at a very young age.
01:46And that sparked my interest into going to college at FIT, Fashion Institute of Technology.
01:54I was born without a right forearm, so my arm ends just below my elbow.
01:59And I wear one of the most advanced prosthetic hands in the world.
02:04I always wanted to model, actually.
02:06When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I was starting to play with, like, hair and makeup
02:11and dressing up and taking pictures.
02:14And my mom, she said, oh, you know, we should take you to an agency in New York City.
02:19So I just remember doing a little photo shoot in New York City, and the casting director was just like,
02:25I don't think you're really going to have a future in this business.
02:29And that was kind of the end of that.
02:31I just kind of put my head down and kind of said, okay, what next?
02:35Eight years ago, I decided to remove my damaged leg and replace it with an artificial one.
02:43And I didn't really know that it was going to be a particularly groundbreaking kind of thing
02:50for anyone or for myself, even.
02:52Like, I just thought that I was upgrading.
02:59My name is Ivan Bart.
03:00I'm the president of IMG Models.
03:02We have offices in New York, London, Paris, Milan, and Sydney.
03:08I was a boy from Brooklyn, New York.
03:10I had never traveled.
03:12We didn't come from a lot of money.
03:14And I had a mother who worked as an assistant, basically, and a father that was absent.
03:21And someone asked me, what do you want to do in life?
03:23And I said, I want to travel around Europe.
03:26And about three years later, I was working in a modeling agency, a small modeling agency.
03:32And they said, you're going to have the ability to go to Milan Fashion Week.
03:35And when I got on that plane, I began to understand that I had a real opportunity to really help
03:42elevate and maximize people's potential.
03:45And once I understood that is when I got to represent some of the most powerful women in the modeling
03:51industry.
03:51Carolyn Murphy, Lauren Hutton, Stephanie Seymour, and Carly Kloss, Gigi Hadid, and Lara Stone.
03:57Christie Brinkley, I represent.
03:59I've had the privilege to represent some of the greatest talent in the world.
04:02And so there's nothing for me to prove at this point other than to help elevate the conversation of diversity,
04:10inclusion, and evolution.
04:12So we're trying to sell a diverse group of women, men, in all sizes, in all races, the idea of
04:21diversity and inclusion.
04:26During college, I used to help a lot with my friends who were photographers and, you know, do test shoots
04:32for them or just stand in so they can fix the light on the model that they were going to
04:37use.
04:38So I was a little bit familiar being in front of the camera, but it was something that I never
04:43would have imagined that it would be my future.
04:46At the time, I was kind of doing music, I was doing photo shoots, I was into fashion and prosthetics,
04:52and I was just this random girl that was doing that.
04:55I didn't really see myself on like a bigger scale of what I was doing, what it meant, really.
05:02I was actually talking to a friend of mine, telling him how I was in the process of getting a
05:07myoelectric prosthesis.
05:08That's when he mentioned that I should model it and be a spokesperson for amputees.
05:15And I was like, that's not such a bad idea.
05:18I remember I was at an event for a magazine that I used to work at.
05:22The cover was Nicola Formichardi, who is now artistic director of Diesel.
05:28We became really, really good friends after that.
05:31We exchanged numbers, contact information, and kind of kept in touch.
05:34And I remember he posted on his social media page that he was doing a casting call for the next
05:41campaign.
05:42And I figure, why not? I've always wanted to work with him.
05:46I set up a little photo shoot with a local photographer and put it on social media, and it just
05:52went nuts.
05:52And that's when I realized, like, okay, I got something here.
05:55I double, triple checked the email to see if it was real or not.
05:59Then, a month later, we shot with beautiful photographer's Inez Avenu, and that was my first modeling gig.
06:07And then, as the Paralympics happened and I had that role in the closing ceremony,
06:11I kind of all of a sudden saw that I was part of a much bigger picture.
06:16And the way I thought about beauty, confidence, creativity, it felt meaningful.
06:27A few months later, here comes IMG, and we just hit it off.
06:32And they understood that diversity is something that needs to happen in the industry.
06:36There's nothing to lose. If I go down with the ship right now saying that I tried to push diversity,
06:43that's what we're doing. I believe that we're setting the standard.
06:46Since then, I have walked in New York Fashion Week a couple times,
06:50and I've been featured in Time Magazine, People Magazine, Us Weekly, you name it.
06:55It's been quite a ride.
06:57The prototype video that I did had something like 30 million views.
07:01I do believe that somehow it became a really impactful thing.
07:06Growing up, it's not that I didn't think that I would ever be a model.
07:10I just didn't see anyone who was a model who had a disability out there,
07:15so I didn't think that it was something that, you know, I would have the opportunity to ever, ever do,
07:20because it wasn't been done before.
07:22It's important to have voices in the community today that work through the challenges themselves
07:26and are able to communicate to young people that it's okay.
07:30The challenges that you're going through are not unique.
07:33I've been through that, and I've come out on the other side.
07:37I wouldn't say that all of those things are normalized yet.
07:39It's still a little bit of an anomaly, but there's a shift happening, I think, in the industry at the
07:45moment
07:46where people are starting to understand that it isn't just about the body.
07:50Ultimately, everything comes from how connected you are to yourself inside, really, I think.
07:58My name is Denise Fiddle. I am a plus model and body positivity activist.
08:04People and consumers need to see themselves.
08:08It's not a plus size, because most people are not a sample size.
08:13To love yourself in today's society just means to be able to continue existing
08:18and to not allow other people to drag you down.
08:22Fashion has this really bad reputation about creating unrealistic beauty standards.
08:26I try not to compare myself to those girls, but I kind of do.
08:30There are so many people in this world who are sad, and they hate themselves,
08:34and they like to take that cruelty out on other people.
08:37People were like, no, you're short, and you're on the bigger side, so you're not going to ever work.
08:41They're the trolls that are online, that post really hateful comments.
08:45Oh, she's ugly. She looks like a man.
08:46They have so much internalized hate that they're projecting it on other people,
08:51because they can't stand the idea that someone could be like me and love themselves and be happy,
08:57when they hate themselves and they're unhappy.
09:01I'm Ivan Bard.
09:02I'm Denise Bideau. I'm a plus size model.
09:05I'm Liz Black. I'm a writer.
09:06I'm Hari Neff. I'm an actor and a model.
09:09Our motto is diversity, inclusion, evolution.
09:13And I'm beautiful.
09:14I'm beautiful.
09:15I'm beautiful.
09:17What is truly valuable is our differences and all of our heritages and bodies and sexuality.
09:23That is what is truly beautiful.
09:34I have always come from an amazingly supportive family.
09:38Growing up, we just always really spread love.
09:40Latino culture, you're always telling someone, I love you.
09:42You're kind of sappy in the sense of like, you're beautiful. I adore you.
09:45You know, so I remember hearing it a lot growing up.
09:49But then again, it was funny because as much as I heard it, I wasn't seeing that same action.
09:55So my aunt was always dieting. My mom was always yo-yo dieting.
09:58My grandma was a little bit heavier set.
10:00And so with all that love and positivity, I still wasn't seeing them love themselves.
10:05I definitely grew up thinking that fat was bad because my mother was fat and she hated how fat she
10:12was.
10:12Even though she never put it on me, it still influenced me because I saw how she treated herself.
10:17My grandmother was always putting her down and putting me down too.
10:21My whole life, I've been trying to figure out who I am and find my essence.
10:25It's crazy. As women, there's never a moment when you're perfect or you're it.
10:29I feel like that's just a lesson after lesson after lesson.
10:33I had had my own body acceptance journey.
10:35The self-acceptance, self-love has really progressed.
10:38I felt like, yeah, I'm fat. So what? I'm still so much more.
10:43I've learned to just kind of deal with it. I have cellulite. I have stretch marks. I'm a mom.
10:47They're like my battle scars. I'm proud of them. And at this point in life, I can't change them. So
10:52I'm sticking with it.
10:57I had been reading Refinery29 since basically its inception and really loved their content, but there was never anything that
11:05really applied to me as a plus size woman.
11:10I reached out to them and I told them, I can fill this void for you. They immediately jumped on
11:16it.
11:16It was a great lesson when life, if you want something, you should reach out to try to get it.
11:22Just like how the fashion crowd itself has gotten more diverse, I've also seen that on the runway.
11:28Like Sophia Thillet this last season, she had Candace Huffney walk in her runway show.
11:33Then Marc Jacobs had Beth Ditto walking his runway, and I'm a big fan of hers, but he doesn't make
11:39plus size clothes.
11:40So it really felt like this was a shallow token gesture.
11:43I would love for him to make plus size clothes. Marc Jacobs, if you're watching this, please do.
11:48That kind of Instagram following is boosting a lot of models these days.
11:54Barbara Ferrer is really interesting. She is very beautiful. Tess Holliday was able to kind of build her career through
12:00an Instagram and a social following.
12:02I think Denise Bedeau is gorgeous, and she's very striking, and she also knows how to walk on a runway.
12:09I did a campaign recently where we did it completely un-retouched.
12:12I mean, I remember when I approved it, being scared, like, what if I don't like them? What if I
12:17look gross?
12:18And then I was like, are you kidding me? This is everything you're fighting for. Like, you have to walk
12:22the walk.
12:22If you're going to sit here and tell women to love themselves, flaws and all, you have to be able
12:27to sit there and go through the motions with them.
12:29And to me, that was probably the peak of my self-acceptance, and it was just like six months ago.
12:35So their journey continues.
12:38An aha moment's great for a narrative, but in real life, it's gradual.
12:44I said to myself, are you going to be able to live as your authentic self for the rest of
12:52your life in this body that you have?
12:55And the answer was probably not.
12:59Even at 21, my body was still developing and becoming more and more masculine every year, and the more masculine
13:05I got, this, like, hairy Eastern European Jewish body I had, I was like, all right, this is getting harder
13:14and harder and harder.
13:15I just had it.
13:18So I made some changes.
13:20Not too many changes.
13:24Hari Neff is a great talent, a great actress, left Columbia University with honors, and created a body of work.
13:32I had shot with Alistair McClellan, booked that on my own, shot with Nicola Formichetti on my own, I'd shot
13:39a campaign.
13:40She was about to do an off-Broadway play when Jill Soloway called and decided to write an arc in
13:49Transparent 2 just for Hari.
13:52I got this call from Transparent, and they sent me a contract, and I'd never seen a contract before, so
13:58I didn't know what to do.
13:59So I emailed Ivan, I said, hey, just thought you should know.
14:01I just couldn't believe our luck that we had this opportunity to work with somebody who was going to break
14:08boundaries, and she's about to go into an Emmy-winning production.
14:12And then he called me, and he was like, we're going to do this for you, and then we're going
14:18to sign you.
14:20Two things that I thought would either never happen to me or that I'd have to, like, work for years
14:28to get to just happened.
14:31It was crazy. It was cool.
14:36I think to all those young women out there who are really struggling with self-esteem, everyone goes through it.
14:41You're not alone in this battle.
14:43There's too much emphasis on trying to fit in with the crowd, especially when you're in high school or middle
14:48school.
14:48You don't want to stand out. You want to be like everybody else. But really, you don't want to be
14:53like those people.
14:54Because if you blend into the crowd, no one is ever going to notice you.
14:57Listen, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. This industry is not going to become more diverse from the goodness of
15:03its heart.
15:05It's going to have to be based on the things that it's always been based on, selling.
15:09But I think that that is a part of a greater conversation of power and who has it.
15:14As power becomes redefined, beauty becomes redefined.
15:18The modeling industry, if it wants to, you know, survive, will have to adapt.
15:29My name is Pat Cleveland and I'm a muse.
15:35It was a lot different than it is now.
15:38They would make the designer. The world would become inspired by them.
15:41Then all the elegance just sort of washed away.
15:44The industry has an obsession with youth.
15:48Our concept of beauty has become so one dimensional.
15:51I didn't understand that style could be beyond that one look.
15:55The photoshopping, it's insurmountable at this point.
15:59I wasn't hooked on being young.
16:01The Olsen twins said, oh, you are so inspiring to us.
16:05I'm Elisa.
16:06And I'm Lily.
16:07We created style like you.
16:09I'm Susan Hirsch.
16:10I'm 53.
16:11I'm Beatrix Ost.
16:13I'm 75.
16:14I'm 65 and I am beautiful.
16:18And I'm beautiful.
16:19And we're beautiful.
16:29In the 40s, my father came over from Sweden because he wanted to get into the jazz scene.
16:34My father was a saxophonist.
16:37And he met Lady Bird, who was my mother, the painter.
16:40She was American, black, Cherokee and Irish.
16:44And it was kind of a love story, the forbidden fruits.
16:51When I was 15, I was discovered in the subway by a lady from Vogue.
16:56And she liked the way I was dressed.
16:58And so then I ended up being photographed for Vogue.
17:02Double page spread.
17:04And things changed.
17:08Meeting all of the stars, like Red Fox and Muhammad Ali was in my life.
17:14And, well, that was quite an episode.
17:16And traveling to the south with a bus full of black girls in couture clothes was not the
17:22safest thing in the world because there was the Ku Klux Klan who chased us.
17:26And there was a lot of racial prejudice.
17:32When I got to be 19 and 20, things started changing towards funky soul music and the black movement.
17:39And black is beautiful.
17:41And it just became so colorful.
17:45And the modeling was a very private thing.
17:48It was like you were a muse to an artist or a designer.
17:52What it means is that you're alive in a place and you all answer questions for each other.
17:58For instance, if this dress is shaped this way, how would this dress move?
18:03And because I'm so inclined to move a lot and dance, you know, with a designer,
18:09they could see the clothing come to life on someone.
18:12And that's the purpose of a model.
18:14By the time I got to the 80s and 90s, things became very, very serious because of the plague of
18:20AIDS.
18:21And suddenly it became corporate.
18:23So you were a muse for money and not so much as for connecting with the artists and creating things.
18:30And it became like a conveyor belt of similar looking girls that had no character.
18:37They washed away the character, the sensitivity, the beauty, the kisses, the expression.
18:48I started as an assistant in the 80s at Condé Nast.
18:52It was just an absolutely magical, magical, magical, amazing time.
18:57I moved my way up and I became an editor myself like in my mid-20s.
19:01I hired Mario Testino to do things and Marc Jacobs was walking around with his hand-knit sweaters
19:07and Kenneth Cole put his first 10 pairs of shoes on my desk.
19:11And it made me really understand what it was to be yourself and not be like anyone else.
19:17Funny enough, it was that way then.
19:20But I took a break because my kids were little and it was 2 24-7.
19:27Well, from 2000, what everything depended on at that time is where the sales were going to go.
19:33You know, it was like marketing to different countries.
19:36And having a model agency, I taught many girls how to walk.
19:40And I also had to watch out for many girls who were so much younger than they should have been.
19:45Like they were coming over at the age of 13 not chaperoned.
19:49It was a very messy affair.
19:51I had made a good mark for myself, so I was able to fly kind of back into it again
19:55after a fairly long period of time.
19:59And it just, the whole thing had just become...
20:01Status, mean, pretentious.
20:04Every model started to look like they were 13 years old.
20:08I was doing covers of magazines, red carpet.
20:11Suddenly, couldn't get clothes for anyone over 25 years old.
20:18Everything's got to go to the 14-year-old who is going to then, by the time they're 24, 26,
20:2428, or 30,
20:26is going to only buy these clothes.
20:27Like, we have to start now.
20:28You brainwash them when they're 14.
20:30Right. And I was like, whoa.
20:32The industry has an obsession as far as youth.
20:38I grew up with silver hair.
20:40And when I got into the business, they were looking for someone like me.
20:44Because most of the women that had silver hair, they were in their 50s.
20:49Or they were maybe even in their early 60s.
20:52And their skin didn't have the same smooth texture as my skin.
20:57And so I was 40 playing the role of a 60-plus in a campaign.
21:03There has to be a profound re-education of our brains.
21:09The programming is so deep to fear age.
21:15Why do we live in a society that fears everything that is natural?
21:22We realized that we were up against something that was making us very unhappy.
21:26And that was kind of, that was part of the genesis of style like you.
21:31Everything in this room means something to me and has just so many different associations.
21:36To see somebody that you might see in a magazine open up on video and like talk about their insecurities,
21:41but also what they love about themselves and why they dress the way they do.
21:43It's always really hard to just look in the mirror and say, wow, I'm so pretty today.
21:48All of a sudden it opens your mind to that like style.
21:51It's not just a superficial thing.
21:52I have never felt beautiful, I think.
21:55I look better now than I have in my whole life.
21:59It's the person and how they embody the clothes.
22:01It's not the clothes, it's the person.
22:03How many miles are you going to have?
22:04Well, we're going to have 32.
22:06And you just want me to find you a black girl?
22:08You have 32?
22:09Come on.
22:09Say you want five.
22:10These are the people that are worth being celebrated.
22:13They're leaders and they're courageous in what they're doing.
22:15If it wasn't you guys, I wouldn't do it.
22:17Why?
22:18Because I like you guys.
22:19I don't like being told that I can't do something.
22:22Because I'm a certain age.
22:25Many people have to forget what has been told who they are.
22:29You have to find yourself.
22:35Somebody asked me about how do you deal with aging?
22:39And I said, the more you celebrate aging, the younger you feel.
22:44I am an artist and I became a writer in my early sixties.
22:50It's wonderful.
22:52It became a passion.
22:54There's this incredible acceptance of being old and elegant now with all these books of
23:00Ari Cohen.
23:03But it's just a moment of enjoyment.
23:05Then comes that other part, the brain, the experience, the excitement.
23:12If we could be freed to accept our true selves and the joy of self-expression, not a commodified
23:20version, not something that's sold to you, we could turn the whole planet around.
23:23I don't say no.
23:25I say yes.
23:27You know?
23:27So say yes and live a long, happy life and forget about age.
23:31People really value their beauty and their sense of like worthiness or their sense of like
23:37I'm a real person kind of thing.
23:39They really value it by their body.
23:41And removing a part of my body and replacing it with an artificial one that made me function
23:46better was a massive sort of example of how wrong that is really.
23:52The things that do make you successful, beautiful or interesting or actually even a good person
23:57are all things that are mostly coming from within you to be quite honest.
24:02Beauty is within the whole package.
24:10Do you feel beautiful now?
24:13As they say, the world is a stage and we're all actors.
24:16So some days I look good and some days I don't.
24:18Whatever.
24:22It depends on the day.
24:25I feel beautiful because I exist.
24:28I wish so badly that I could talk to the 16 year old me and say, you know, it's not
24:34that
24:34big of a deal.
24:35Having one hand is not that big of a deal.
24:38You're beautiful.
24:38You're strong.
24:39You're intelligent.
24:40You can do this.
24:41I'm going to get the fried chicken sandwich.
24:46That's what models eat.
24:48You have someone out there who's being negative towards you or feeding you toxic knowledge.
24:53Just get rid of them.
24:54Life goes on and you'll find yourself and you'll realize you're perfect.
24:58You have noticed I have this sign here.
25:01It was a cancerous growth and I had to have a large piece of skin cut out of my forehead
25:08and that is really like a bomb hits you.
25:11And when it was sewn together, I fell in love with it.
25:15I turned the horrible into a beauty mark.
25:18As dark as it is, we're also in the Renaissance.
25:22There is a light at the end of the tunnel and I think we're in a revolution.
25:27Just like being alive in itself, it's so beautiful to have and to know that you exist and there's
25:33no one in this world or universe for that matter that's just like you.
25:37I'm very proud to say that I'll be accompanying Jillian to the White House to meet President Obama and Michelle.
25:44This is the change that needs to happen in the world.
25:46People need to start accepting themselves and stop buying into the notion that there is one ideal of beauty.
25:50And that they're not beautiful.
25:51It's not if you're not pretty, go get, you know, be smart or play the violin.
25:56It's that, no, you are. You are beautiful.
25:59If you own that and you accept that, that is beauty.
26:03Accept yourself.
26:04This is your life. This is you.
26:07This is this God-given gift.
26:10Take care of it. Use your brain. Use your heart.
26:14This is it. This is what you got.
26:221 on her own path.
26:261 on her own path.
26:272 to 2.
26:271 on her own path.
26:272 on her own path.
26:282 on her own path.
26:282 I get to go 2.
26:28I get to go 3.
26:283.
26:282 on her own path.
26:283.