By the title you should really be able to detect the tone of this post. The internet is buzzing with the freshly discovered Ark Music Factory – a recording and video production crew who charge 2k to each artist to make a song and music video. This of course attracts the rather well off 16 year old teen who is just so darn bored of their horses, constant shopping trips and expensive gifts from Daddy because he’s too busy to actually lavish them with the attention they need. Ok so maybe that’s just a bitter reaction to not having come from a rich background, but still, sometimes it’s hard to be happy for someone when they have it so easy!

My gut reaction is to be appalled. A company, charging thousands, taking advantage of young girl’s dreams; it’s nothing new. For instance, there are plenty of top labels who charge top dollar to wannabe models for a portfolio just because they claim there is a ‘chance’ of being signed. The truth is, they’re finding new ways of tapping into the fame-obsessed culture of today, and discovering it’s incredibly easy to earn money from it. Honesty doesn’t make a profitable business.

But Ark are embracing these negative responses to their business, and using it to further prove that what they are doing works. Controversy is free advertising. I mean look at them: relatively small time names, creating industry standard videos (but god awful songs, that can’t be denied) which have been getting views on youtube that rival today’s biggest artists. These teens have certainly got their money’s worth.

So where is the harm? One could say that these kids are being convinced that having large amounts of cash is a replacement for hard work, i.e. singers that spend years writing, performing and touring to earn their celebrity status. But isn’t that just how our society works? I’m not saying it’s right, but Ark are doing nothing unique. Quite a few singers that are popular in today’s music scene have come from similar backgrounds: where they’re parents paid for singing lessons, paid for performing arts schools, and paid for the beginning of their child’s career. This is just a faster way of doing the same thing. I in fact know of quite a few musicians who have found that paying for PR and distributing their work themselves gets them far more recognition and they are now far more well known than those who do not have the same money.

As for the auto tuning, how many pop stars don’t use it on a frequent basis. Talent is not always marketable. Whereas faces combined with the correct songs are. As much as I want to hate this company and everything it stands for, they’re just additional proof that the music industry is just as image based as the fashion industry and not the cause of the problem. They’ve purely seen a niche, and are making a bundle from it.

Huzzah! FINALLY a top women’s brassiere boutique is embracing the idea that all women are beautiful in their campaign. True, it’s on the other side of the world in Australia, but it’s certainly a start.

The Art of Shaping is a competition and campaign being held by Triumph boutique, and is based on The Shaping Report by Footprints Market Research in Nov. 2010. The statistics are astounding:

• 70% of women are not happy with their body
• 79% of women say their partners are happy with their body

This backs up exactly what I’ve found. If you’re man is truly happy with who you are and what you look like, shouldn’t that be evidence that there is nothing wrong? Yes we compare ourselves to other women, and wish we were like them, but one of the core reasons we want to look good is to feel sexy and attractive for our partner or future partners, so this is proof that the issue is within ourselves and not with how we actually look.

• 48% of women are size 14 or above, yet 57% of women would like to be no more than a size 10.

I’m pleased to see that the aspirations of these women isn’t to be what the fashion world parades as perfection. I’m all in support of women who want to lose a bit of weight for health reasons, so long as it’s done in a healthy manner!

The rest of the research was aimed more at the advertisement of Triumph’s shape wear, but it was encouraging. I’m all for shape wear, I do use it myself on bloated days and I think it helps more psychologically then in actual appearance. But confidence does increase, so I’m fully behind this campaign.

Anyway, they’ve sectioned the shapes of women into six categories:

• Da Vinci – Small hips, small waist, small bust (Straight)
• Rubens – Hips, waist, bust (Curvy)
• Botticelli – Small bust, small waist, hips (Pear)
• Raphael –  Small waist, small hips, bust (Straight)
• Matisse – Small hips, waist, bust (Curvy)
• Rembrandt – Small waist, bust, hips (Hour Glass)

Refreshing to not just see two categories: fat + thin. Each were given advice on how to best accentuate the good features of this body type, as well as hide the bits you don’t like. Not one was seen as better than the other. Each just as good and bad as the other. My dream is for this to be solidified in all women’s minds. After all, every person is unique, so why shouldn’t their body reflect that? Am thinking that perhaps statistics like this would really help the cause, for real women to hear what other real women are saying; as opposed to ONLY having the media’s set of images being the only ones we see. All I want is a world where we can walk down the street and not be bombarded by posters of unhealthily thin women which says “Being thin is great, being thin is the best, you want to be thin don’t you? Well buy our clothes and you’ll look like this”. Fallacy.

To have a look at this report yourself and see the wonderful competition that Triumph are holding, visit http://theartofshaping.com.au