Nigel Barker Talks 'Cookie Cutter' Beauty Standards

As a longtime fashion photographer and HeForShe advocate, Nigel Barker has a lot to say about the definition of beauty within the fashion industry, especially since his mother was a Sri Lankan model in the 1960s.

“Of course, if you think about the ’60s and the ’70s, there were very few people of ethnicities, of color, modeling and in pictures and in advertising. So that was a very tough time,” he told host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani.

Growing up with such a “powerful, strong matriarchal figure” instilled some serious values about beauty standards in Barker.

She made me realize that if you push through and you struggle and you don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, that you can make a difference. You can make people realize that the face of beauty doesn’t have to be whitewashed, doesn’t have to be a certain shape or size, doesn’t have to be cookie cutter — that you can change the stereotypes and you can make a difference.

The former “America’s Next Top Model” judge also talked traditional gender expectations and how he is raising his children to break them — starting in the kitchen.

“I bring my son into the kitchen with me and my wife and my daughter and we all cook together,” he said. “We all do everything together and there is no you get this and you get that. You’re blue and you’re pink. You know, you get the cars and you get the dolls.”

Check out Nigel Barker’s interview with HuffPost Live above.

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Source: Huffington Post Women