JOURNAL
Our new series, The Shape of Beauty, is about women authentically sharing their thoughts and feelings about their bodies, celebrating what is beautiful about themselves, and honoring what has been intrinsically passed on to them from their mothers.
 |
Through intimate photography and candid dialogue we aim to depict women as they look and sound without any filters and to celebrate, respect, and share the differences that make us individually beautiful.
We begin this series on Mother’s Day with our founder and creative director, Araks Yeramyan, mother of three–two children and one brand. |
“My legs have always reminded me of my mother’s legs. Especially this hump that I have right below my hips at the front and side.”
I started to notice in my 20s and 30s that a lot of other Armenian women I knew, and of course my mom, also had this hump. I feel like it’s a shape that I have inherited. I can’t say that I love it, but it doesn’t bother me and I like having something that distinguishes me as Armenian–more than my face or my name. I think that it’s interesting and cool.
I love that my body is soft and kind of mushy, even though I’m a pretty small person. When I was young, I wanted to have arms with definition, but no matter how much I exercised I could never achieve it. I chose to love the softness instead.
My mom and I both have scoliosis–when we stand we’re a little crooked. We both have lines that you can see from it if you look. Her condition is more severe than mine, so she has a more defined line.
Growing up my mom never talked about not being happy with her body, and I am sure that I was fortunate to not hear that kind of negative self talk as a child. That being said, I really felt like an ugly person for most of my life–up until about ten years ago when I saw a picture of my twenty year old self. At that moment I couldn’t believe that I had put so much energy into not feeling pretty for so long.
Growing up, I didn’t look like the the “idea of beauty.” I couldn’t find myself anywhere–not in magazines, or movies, or in television shows. Beauty was Christy Brinkley, which I was not. I wanted to be blonde so bad. I’m thankful now that my parents wouldn’t let me dye my hair. I would have looked terrible as a blonde.
My mom was the most basic person in terms of skincare. She used just soap to wash herself, face and body–no toners or exfoliators or moisturizers. And, she had great skin! I’m not that minimal, but I don’t use much on my skin and for most of my life I didn’t do anything. I have once face cream from May Lindstrom Skin, The Blue Cocoon. My sister gave it to me as a gift for Christmas, I started using it, and people began commenting on how great my skin looked. Of course, I bought some for my mom.
All photography by Jen Steele