The question of smiling, fake serious faces, and authenticity

"SMILE!" We all know that yelp before a casual photo. Or "SAY CHEESE!" Time to fake smile. Oh wow, look how much fun I'm having! Hey, my life is awesome!

I am now a proficient fake smiler and even fake laugher, a result of years of rigorous training. Doing this convincingly in "real" life is a whole other blog post.

But the opposite of a forced smile is forced seriousness, which is just as fake as the smile but maybe easier to pull off. Without this pose, I wonder if high fashion would even exist. It's simply the relaxed face with a dash of intention or self-awareness.

I suppose when you drop a whack-ton of money on a Chanel suit, it's serious business. My face upon spending such sums would probably look like the Psycho shower scene, if I'm still conscious at all. And then there are those who live in rarefied air who don't even blink. Sigh. I'd like to try on that face some day for realsie, and I'd have my personal assistants pose for me.

Me (with camera to assistants): Just relax and show how happy you are working for me. Did you not hear me? I said &*#(@6 HAPPY!! 

The Zoolander face is the absolute best example of the fake serious face: the sucked in cheeks, exaggerated pout, and squinched eyes. And an inner growl which probably only dogs can hear. (Zoolander is a movie that spoofs high fashion.)

For me, the fake laugh often leads to a real one and the fake super-serious face does too, but does a fake serious face lead to a real serious face? I hadn't thought about it until just now. I would guess no, although wretched photos do inspire real-life serious faces, if grimaces or frowns qualify.

Even the effects of gravity on a face, especially jowls, can mimic a serious face, which usually translates into a real-life one too because it is so fecking annoying! Does that make it a high-fashion face? Hardly. But there are sometimes scary faces strutting down runways, not due to physics but the gravity of the situation I suppose.

About the outfit - my friend Mara (I've written about her before HERE) drew my eye to these pieces on the super summer discount rack at a local consignment store, a dusty rose suedine (ultrasuede) dress by Dutch brand 10 Feet and this sheer nude trench coat/dress thing by Mint Velvet. 

You can see the sunscreen on my nose as I didn't bring my parasol. Friends have often reminded me I must blend it in but I always forget and it's hard to notice indoors before I go out.

 

I think models fake laughing as they strut down a runway might be just as surreal as models with serious faces. It's all part of a role anyway; otherwise, it would be called people walking nowhere indoors in a straight line.

All of this begs the question: is there such a thing as authentic? Is that ever enough? How do we know when we look real authentic as opposed to fake authentic? Maybe we need an app for that. Lie detector machines have tried and still fail.

I enjoy finding the sweet spots in between the poses, the off-guard moments, which, if I am successful, I may try to wrest into a repeatable formula thereby ruining them. And it's too bad that the candids are also often the ones I don't want to share. There's genuine and there's too genuine. I like a bit of curation. Can't I have my cake and eat it too!?

Maybe everything is an illusion. Maybe the idea of an "authentic look" is not possible anymore with ever increasing photo moments in our daily lives, like we're running on some joke of a cosmic loop of "say cheese." We survey life through the lenses of cameras, our own, others', and surveillance which so far we don't feel the need to pose for (she wrote, looking nervously around the room with a stiff grin on her face).

I'll link up to Patti at Visible Monday at Not Dead Yet Style and Catherine at #iwillwearwhatilike at Not Dressed as Lamb. I hope I'll see you there.

Finally, I have recently been in a Canada-wide ad campaign for Shopper's Drug Mart, part of The Beauty Project they're running until September 6, HERE and a video HERE. If you go into one of their stores (or online), chances are you'll see me in photos and/or a bunch of little videos. Just imagine that I'm encouraging you to try a new look! Filming was a great experience, in Toronto on two occasions this summer.

So have a look if you can. Let me know what you think. I put two of the photos on my IG, here and here.

That's it, seriously, authentically, maybe. Cheers, everyone!!