What is Beauty?

Hi friends,

It’s going to be a hot couple of days here in Paris and just as things are heating up, so is the pace of things in the city. This week is Paris Haute Couture week which is, in my opinion, one of the best fashion weeks of the year. The Olympics are also right around the corner and as Parisians gear up to telework and vacate their apartments, I’ll still be here searching for my next job.

This week, I have an exciting series of events coming up. I’ll be working on the production side of a beauty shoot and modeling in my first PFW show for a small designer. All this talk about beauty gave me the chance to reflect about what beauty means to me and where my sense of beauty comes from.

My great Grandmother was a Hollywood actress:

Growing up, I was told that I was pretty and beautiful when introduced to friends and family but I never truly felt beautiful until my late twenties.

Beauty standards are a complicated thing when you’re from a multicultural family like mine. As someone who is half-Chinese, half-Japanese and fourth generation American, I never felt fully Asian or fully American (whatever that means). Growing up in the 90’s meant that Asians and other POC were not fully represented in the mainstream media and models were still predominantly white, with always the occasional POC exception. I can remember flipping through Teen Vogue and simply being so excited whenever I spotted an Asian girl in one of the ad campaigns.

For my great grandmother, Jean Wong, she was truly a pioneer making a name for herself by appearing in over a dozen Hollywood films. During a time where racism was even more rampant and simply being a woman meant having to endure certain limitations, it seems like a miracle my great-great grandmother was able to have the kind of screen time she had.

Photos of Jean Wong, my great-great grandmother

In the photos, she seems to truly embody the ideal women’s beauty standard: thin, graceful, gentle features, and bright eyes. When I look at these photos I can only hope that I emulate at least half of the beauty that she had. Nevertheless, it’s true that I’ll never fully get the chance to know what kind of person she was. What kind of mother, friend, sister, neighbor, or career woman she aspired to be. All that’s left are her beautiful photos and the memories my family has of her.

I’m a model (kind of)

When I was in college, I started my blog Ella Kol to showcase all of my hobbies and interests. I was inspired by the rise of fashion bloggers using Instagram to make a name for themselves and I wanted a piece of the pie. This lead to photographer friends offering to take photos of me for their portfolio. I was still learning how to take photos of myself so it was a great opportunity to work with photographer friends to have some high quality photos for the blog.

Photography by Kiley Rickman

Over the years, I’ve become a bit of a “freelance” model, working on small projects here and there and making content for beauty brands when I get the chance. I love modeling; it’s an opportunity to dress up and feel creative, but I’m always hesitant to tell anyone that I’m a model. For one, simply the word modeling has complicated connotations and everyone has their own opinions as to what a model should look like. Second, I don’t model as a living and I’m not signed to a modeling agency so I feel like that can be misleading. Lastly, modeling is not what I want people to remember me for. I’d much rather my friends and family know me as someone who loves to take content, travel, cook/bake, and hit the thrift stores. Modeling is my hobby and if ever it becomes more of a serious thing, great, if not I’m okay with that too.

What is beauty?

After watching the latest Netflix docuseries, “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders”, I was reminded of my time as a dance performer in high school. Despite having extreme stage fright as a teenager, somehow I managed to get on the dance team and perform half-time shows in front of the whole student body. Those years are behind me, but it did teach me everything I know in regards to posture, stage presence, showmanship, confidence, leadership, and teamwork. Though I’ll never be a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, I can relate to the intensity of trying to look beautiful while doing something highly athletic. Every dancer’s job is to make it look easy, that’s the beauty in it.

After surviving all of the insecurities of my early twenties, I’ve gotten more and more comfortable in my own skin. Maybe for me it’s better to have gone through a bit of an ugly duckling phase with braces (thanks mom and dad), acne, and crippling eczema flares to fully appreciate the straight teeth and clear skin I have now. To me, beauty is about health, confidence, and kindness. You can’t have one without the other and to have all three is what it means to me to be truly beautiful.

Now I’d like to open up the conversation to you, dear reader. Tell me what beauty means to you, if you feel beautiful, or what you do to pick yourself up when you’re not.

À bientôt!

Kiana

PS: Shoutout to Kiley Rickman, my dear photographer friend since college for taking these beautiful portrait shots of me during our shoot in LA.

The look was inspired by old Hollywood glamour with a modern twist.

Also, many thanks to my dear Aunty Arlene for educating me about my great-great grandmother and sharing this book of photos with me.