Francis Spufford Quotes

I was essentially paid to perpetuate the myth that we are all, or should at least try to be, 17 and a size 2 forever.

Society has made us believe you should look like an 18-year-old model all your life.

By creating so many illusory images of physical perfection, whether on store aisles or storefront ads, magazine covers or TV shows, we speak more to the profit margins of companies than the self-esteem of today's girls.

We live in a crazily youth-orientated world nowadays. It's a trickle-down thing. We see pictures of lithe, attractive celebrity couples such as Brad and Angelina or the Beckhams cavorting around, covered in tattoos, stomachs as flat as the singing in early 'X Factor' rounds.

America, you're sending girls a mixed message. On one hand, you're saying to have positive body image and love who we are; on the other, we're being marketed makeup and clothing that obviously turns us into someone different.

If you look at most beauty advertisements, you would think that makeup is only for beautiful women in their early twenties.

What's the biggest commercial for aggression, sexuality and materialism? What gets pumped into these kids' heads? Taking someone else's girl, which is so laissez-faire in hip-hop, will get you killed in the streets, but it doesn't seem to be an issue when you hear it on the radio.

Sadly, in any industry and in any work-related environment, females always strive to achieve a certain amount of perfection, whether that be skinny or pretty. It's a constant, in our society.

I don't know any women who don't think about what they look like, and I don't know any men who don't think about what women look like.

So many of the kids on television have really nice clothes, perfect skin and hair.

The way I looked when I started modelling - I was a skinny schoolgirl, stuffing tissues into my little 32A bra. I wasn't trying to be that thin; I was perfectly healthy, but still - that look is a total impossibility for women over the age of 20. Fashion has a lot to answer for, doesn't it?

I find it interesting that 16-year-olds are having plastic surgery. People in their 40s used to think, 'I'm aging, I have to do something about it.' Now children are deciding they don't like the way they look.

I think people are learning to actually aspire to be objectified.

Thanks to capitalism, the importance placed on beauty has never been so manipulated. We are the guinea pigs force-fed ads that tell us how pathetic we are: that we will never be loved, happy or valuable unless we have the body, the face, the hair, even the personality that will apparently be ours, if only we buy their products.

It's every woman's tragedy, that, after a certain age, she looks like a female impersonator. Mind you, we've known some lovely female impersonators, in our time.

When you look at movies, the lead girl is always gorgeous and thin. There is a stereotype that you need to look a certain way and when you get in the business you really feel the pressure.

The 'ideal' body is everywhere you look, and we are made to feel like failures by advertisers and corporations who shame us into buying their products.

Old women should not seek to be perfumed.

People expect me to be thin and perfect... I'm not.

Not just in modeling, but in society, there's so much pressure about what a woman should be, and, of course, it's just so unobtainable. You can never become that thing, because it's such a projection.

When women make their image about youth and sexuality, and not about intellect, that's kind of a dead-end road. So I think it's a combination of self-entrapment and entrapment by society.

I think it's a little irresponsible for women who choose surgery to then say they can portray the average woman on the street, because if the average woman can't afford those treatments, then she's going to say, 'I'm 53 and I don't look like that,' and start thinking she's ugly or inadequate.

Listen, 'real' women are the reason the fashion industry exists.

In today's world, having money has allowed people who are extremely uncool to think that they're cool and carry it like that. People who really are cool and people who really are artists and have ideas have to literally turn in their cool card to society just to make it past the age of 28.

I like tight bodies and pretty faces. You bring in Methuselah, if she's got a tight body and a pretty face, that's all right, too.