Succession. Every month, “Le Monde Campus” meets a young person who is shaking up standards. “Wow, but that sounds like therapy!” ” Odile Gautreau reflects, twisting her red hair between her fingers, sitting on the sofa of the “roommate” where her boyfriend lives, in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis). Retrace the journey of this young woman 28 years old, now a model, it is to dive into the twists and turns of a journey as intimate as it is political: that of taming the relationship to his body, against the diktats that prevail from childhood. “The work is still in progress”, launches Odile Gautreau, in a crystalline laughter. There is something magnetic about her appearance: a face dotted with freckles on mixed-race skin, framed by a flamboyant afro cut. Of that frizzy hair that earned her many mockeries as a child, and that she lets today flourish.
Much rounder than the average model – “But not really more than that of French women”, Does she not hesitate to recall – Odile Gautreau contrasts with the white and ultra-thin standards that are usually displayed on the catwalks. Driven by a recent opening of the fashion world to less standardized bodies and different skin tones, it makes his way through the world of glossy paper, precisely counting on its non-conformity. And on the messages she intends to carry.
“Our relationship to the world is largely determined by the images we absorb. I play at changing the codes ”, has fun the model, who posed for Nike or L’Oréal, and who shines this spring on a monumental poster of the Place du Châtelet, in Paris, for the Zalando brand. The power of the image: she knows what she is talking about, she who also officiates on the other side of the fence as a free-lance artistic director.
“Get used to looks”
The young woman exploits this visual force on her own social networks: to show her body as she sees fit, contrary to an ultra-standardized society. With his Instagram account @ogqueen, the model is one of the faces of the “body positive” movement, which has been developing in France for five years. Born in the United States in the 1990s, he invites women to show off proudly, regardless of their morphology, age, skin color or disability. “It’s learning to be benevolent with your body, to cherish it, and above all to do the same with that of others., sums up Odile. We get used to the beauty of the difference and the expression of all women’s bodies. ”
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