Name: Farin Weinger

Social Justice Group: 2018-2019, Sexualization of Women in Fashion

Date of Fieldwork: January 16, 2019

Name of Organization: Fabiana Saba Sutton

Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Fabiana Saba Sutton, Model and Ex-TV Star

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did:

We interviewed Brazilian model Fabiana Saba Sutton, and talked about her experiences in the fashion industry.

What I learned:

I learned how much weight is thrown at models, and how negative that can be. Ms. Saba Sutton turned to smoking and dieting because of this, and many of her friends did too. Fortunately, when she came to America she was able to start anew and become positive about herself again. She is now an advocate for body positivity. One of her friends, unfortunately, got sent to the hospital because of this stigma against “plus size” models. She wasn’t eating and when she started gaining weight again the media thought she was sick. In reality, she was sick before. I learned that the fashion industry mainly only looks at the outside when they should look on the inside. To truly be beautiful, you must believe that you are beautiful.

What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:

Through the fieldwork I learned about body positivity, and how we can all change the fashion industry by enforcing that beauty is everywhere not just in “straight sized” models. Something we can do is share our views over the internet. Using Instagram, twitter, or Facebook people like Fabiana can share how they are beautiful. Fabiana shows how beautiful she is over Instagram when she is not “straight sized”. We are all beautiful and we have to make the fashion industry believe it.