in conversation with Alice

"I feel like my journey with womanhood is continuous, it is something that is always evolving. When I was younger, I felt differently about what womanhood means, and I’m sure as I get older I’ll feel differently to what I do now.

 

When I was young I didn’t really have any solid notions of what womanhood was. I was surrounded by art that depicted strong women and musicians that I could relate to. As I got older, I found that these things were no longer in fashion. I felt very isolated from what society was telling me what it was to be a woman.

It felt that women who didn’t live up to the stereotype of femininity were pushed out; and, I felt like I was not becoming the kind of woman who would fit in.

In my teenage years I found solace in music and great female role models that came with it. But, I still felt that somehow I wasn’t succeeding at being a woman. I didn’t fit the type of woman who had long hair, skirts and high heels. Now I’m older, I still sometimes struggle with the idea of womanhood and my place in it, but I try to see that womanhood is what you make it and how you interpret it.

I only really started being aware of my body image when I was a teenager. I remember thinking I needed to be thin to be accepted but as I was slim, it wasn’t really something I spent too much time thinking about. I realised that I thought this because I’d had my appearance picked at by certain family members for as long as I could remember.

In my 20s I developed a disordered eating. I exercised too much and had a general self-loathing. This is something that I never thought I would experience in my late 20s and into my early 30s. Counselling has helped me to get to grips with the relationship that I have with my body but it’s definitely a relationship that needs work to be sweet. I still struggle with the idea that my body isn’t as disgusting as I think it is, when I’m not the same shape of women I see in magazines and on film - but it is something that I am working on."

Alice wears the Lilac and Black sets by The Nude Label