SARAH JESSICA PARKER IN ALLURE MAGAZINE

February 8, 2008

Has anyone read the interview of SJP in February 08 Allure magazine? I may be the only person in North America who has never seen the TV series Sex and The City, so I don’t know her work well.

I read the article because I’m always fascinated by anyone with a great sense of style. You never see her in an outfit that doesn’t work but she still takes chances in the clothes and accessories she puts together.

The cast of Sex and The City

An imperfect star

Although belonging to a younger generation than I do (or does she? SJP is 42 years old), she conveys a great generosity of spirit. She has always seemed a little apart from the star-of-the-day crowd, if only because I actually know who she is. The usual sense of a young woman who loves the attention and is mostly interested in furthering her own reputation has never been there with SJP.

I enjoyed this article because it focused more on who she is as a person than on the details of the adoration most of these women receive. Many of her reflections provoked me to think. It was also refreshing to see that she was wearing clothing from her Bitten line. The pants costs less than $20. The top is Calvin Klein. So it’s a little concession to looking like the rest of us.

Role model to all women

She lives part of her life in a world where the pressure to transform yourself is enormous, especially after 40, but she has had the grit to resist. As for the demands that she pluck her eyebrows or fix her nose, they “just didn’t stay in my brain for very long”. What a great comment!

All women surely need role models of an age they can relate to with enough fiber in their character to reject someone else’s idea of ‘good’, or worse, ‘good enough’. Teenage girls are having noses and other body parts reconfigured but nobody cares about them any more than they did before; in fact, they become public property more than ever. It’s as if it gives the media and the public permission to dissect their flaws where before, their appearance was accepted.

SJP cover photo Allure February 2008

Anyone notice the gorgeous neutral makeup colors?

Raising a child of privilege

SJP sees her 5yr old son as somehow disadvantaged to be growing up a child of privilege, unlike her own very poor upbringing. Considering what happens to the children of celebrities, I have to agree with her.

Never knowing want of any sort has its downside on many levels – for instance, it becomes difficult to prioritize in a world where everything is just there for the asking. How do you decide what you’d fight to keep and what you’d easily lose? Everything must appear replaceable-including people. What motivates you? Life just seems to be about acquisition and consumption.

Better without the mask

Another quote : “I feel strangely better before I go through hair and makeup…. I feel more like me”. I know women with huge intellectual collateral who refuse to indulge a hair and makeup fixation simply because they do not want to present two faces to the world. Others refuse to buy into social expectations of what women are supposed to look like. If they’re not acceptable in their real face, tough. Fair enough.

I don’t leave the house without a little makeup precisely because that’s not my outside face. I admit that I would be uncomfortable going out without it. It’s just what I’ve become used to. We’re so sure others would judge us differently, but I don’t think it’s true. At least, if anyone does judge you differently, they’re not worth your time. It’s us who begin to judge ourselves differently. That’s where the path of ‘not good enough’ begins. It’s so hard to resist.

Would you do it?

So many women of my late 40’s vintage think of having age spots lasered off and breasts done because our “children sucked the life out of us”, as one good friend puts it. Would we really do it if the money were given to us and risk were eliminated? OK, I know many of us would. Maybe I would too.

Would we really like ourselves so much better? I don’t think our husbands care, I really don’t. Some husbands might, but very few, if any, of the ones I know would. No husband worth having would care. They never expected us not to change. They respect what our bodies have accomplished and the physical power that women’s bodies were designed to have.

Posted by Christine Scaman | Filed Under This Month In ...

Comments

3 Responses to “SARAH JESSICA PARKER IN ALLURE MAGAZINE”

jenepher on February 8th, 2008 8:18 pm

Hey Christine, I appreciate all that you write here. From financial advice to creative marketing info i.e. Ted.com
Allure is the only mag I faithfully buy each month now. I loved it more way back when Kevyn Aucoin was alive and contributed. It seemed a bit more honest. Anyway, I had’nt read the article on SJP but I now will. Plus I
am a 42 yr old women who struggles with the make-up face forward into the world vs no make-up. its what I do for a living yet I love going out without a stitch of it on my face. I don’t know if I can explain it or maybe it would take too long. Or maybe its my way of showing women that even if its what you do for a living, make-up, that you don’t have to do it or be a slave to it. Its a form of expression. Much like the clothes you chose to wear that day or the words that come out of your mouth. if this makes sense, one of my favorite expressions is, “Talk less, Say More”
I think that is also my approach to make-up.
Thanks
JR
gina on February 10th, 2008 4:36 pm

I too absolutely love SJP. She is the quintessential woman in my mind. She dresses well, has great shoes and is so grounded she makes you wonder if she really is a celebrity. Now I know that I am viewing air-brushed photos of her and that she has had some ‘work’ done. I am fully aware of this.
Still it is ‘who’ she is that makes her incredible.
A big fan of ‘Sex In the City’ her character was brilliant.
I have not had anything ‘fixed’ yet and at 49 I wonder when I will look in the mirror and say “okay it’s time” Things are not in the same place but I don’t really mind where they went. I am more active now than I was ten or even twenty years ago. And I like myself far more. I have nothing to prove. I am healthy enough to run 4 or 5 times a week and sweat until I can no longer see.
Yes Sarah epitamizes the ‘woman in control’ to me. Lord knows her day-to-day life is probably as hectic as the rest of ours. Well let’s face it…. far more hectic. She is simply more ‘real’ than those we are bombarded with.
Christine MS on February 15th, 2008 6:35 pm

Jenepher – I agree about Allure. I still buy it but every month, I tell myself it will be the last month. The makeup layouts would be silly on women of any age group. I’m all for creativity but large flecks of glitter glued around the eyes, extreme looks, color combinations that even the model couldn’t wear to a job interview, … I don’t see how that serves women or teaches them anything. I agree that it seemed more real with Kevyn, though I didn’t know he had any artistic input into the rest of the magazine.
I’m fortunate to know your makeup approach first hand. Because I really do love makeup, I can easily get too heavy-handed with it. A visit with you is like a reality check. I’m liking my makeup now better than ever before. Thanks for that.
Gina – SJP is pretty cool. I can see that there’s a fine, and maybe artificial, line between makeup and plastic surgery. It’s all enhancement. And none is wrong or right, just what it right for you. Things have moved around on me too and and I DO mind where they went! but, would I do anything about it? More and more, I figure “I is what I is” and I’ve learned that what matters is that wherever it is, it works. Having said that, I’m secretly hoping that a line-erasing laser procedure will come out in the next 8 years.