Campaigns Need to be Responsible: Masaba Gupta on Body Politics

Designer Masaba Gupta spoke about how cosmetics campaigns need to portray reality at a panel on body politics at the Times of India Literature festival in Mumbai.

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She said that you cannot look like Gigi Hadid or Beyonce if your genetics are a certain way. And campaigns need to be more responsible to make sure that unrealistic expectations are not set for women.

We are raising a generation to think they aren't perfect she said. Brands need to be able to portray normal girls. She said that she has been battling acne for the last 14 years. No amount of neem facewash will make it go away, because it is a hormonal problem, that needs to be addressed by a doctor.

Masaba also spoke about how there is no rule book for looking good.

" The way you look is the choice you make for your health and not for society or cosmetic choice. There's no rule book."

iIt is alright to be slightly bigger as long as you are healthy, and if you want to be skinny you should achieve it. She spoke about how she has had to struggle with weight. She made the choice to lose ten kgs recently and it was a choice she made for her health and her family.

"Dont' get fooled by current trends, everything is a wave," she said. If you think about pleasing society than your confidence will drop. You will sit and walk differently. And that's why you should always wear what you feel comfortable in.

Masaba, whose mother Neena Gupta is a Bollywood actress, said that you cannot escape the 'over sexification' of women's bodies in Bollywood. She said this is not going to change for years to come.

Designer Nitya Arora, who was also on the panel, spoke about how she deals with being a curvy woman. "This is the heaviest I have ever been," she said. But just last week she did a photo shoot with Cosmopolitan, in which she had to wear a swimsuit. At first she had felt conscious, but then the photographer told her to "forget about the exterior, and think about how you feel inside."

"You must teach your heart how to respect yourself "she said.

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