Unretouched: Ariel Winter on Body Positivity and Self-Confidence
CARDIGAN by KHAITE
Ariel Winter began acting at a very young age, starting with commercials when she was just four years old. Today, Winter stars in Modern Family, one of the most popular and long running shows in TV history. The show has become the favorite of an entire generation, as people can easily relate to the quirky and dysfunctional families at the core of the storyline. Since she has been in the industry for just about her entire life, many have been able to watch Winter grow up on screen, which has sometimes led to struggles in her personal life. Despite all of this, Winter continues to be a symbol of self-confidence and can perfectly articulate the feeling of a generation struggling with identity and self-love.
“Everybody has different issues with confidence: speaking in public, weight, socializing. There are different journeys for everyone.”
“When you’re four, you don’t really know exactly what you want to do, but I thought it was fun to play characters,” Winter recalls. As a child, Winter remembers enjoying her time on set and getting the opportunity to meet different actors. For her, acting was just a normal part of life. Her passion for acting developed as she got older and began playing characters that were more complex. “Not until I started doing Modern Family did I really appreciate the actual work of acting,” Winter tells us. “Before, I was doing work as a child, which I still was on Modern Family, but I was doing more in depth character work. It wasn’t just a few episodes of something or a few scenes here and there. I have been doing it for so long that I can’t really think of doing anything else.” Still, being on a show from such a young age and growing up on set was not always easy. For Winter, this meant that her life was documented and open to the public. While this can serve almost as a time capsule for Winter, it can also have negative consequences. “It’s good and bad,” Winter reflects. “As I get older, I can look back and see what I was doing at certain ages. I can see when I had braces and see my super awkward phases, but I'm not the only one doing that. Everyone can see it. It’s a double-edged sword.” Since she was on such a popular show, many felt entitled to give their opinion on how she should grow up. “Starting as a kid, it is especially hard to deal with [everything that comes with fame],” Winter shares. “People get to judge everything you do, starting from the moment that you stepped into the industry... That part sucks the most. Growing up in the spotlight, constantly hearing everyone's opinion about you is not so fun.”
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Winter was 11 when she landed the role of Alex on Modern Family, a family comedy. If you have never heard of the show (which I think is close to impossible), it revolves around three families: Jay, the father, and his young wife and her son; and Jay’s two children, Claire and Mitchell, who both have families of their own. Alex is the daughter of Claire and Phil and is the middle child of that family. In typical middle child fashion, she is constantly, constantly undermined by her older sister Haley or her younger brother Luke. The show has been running for ten seasons, which Winter says has allowed her to learn a lot about acting and the industry. “It’s been fantastic,” Winter elaborates. “We are so lucky that we got to be a part of [Modern Family] and that we are still a part of the show. To have been employed for a season is already a blessing, and for it to have gone on for ten seasons is insane. It's a show that people genuinely like and that we genuinely enjoy making. It is cool growing up on the show because as an actor you get to learn from the other actors. It is really good practice to learn how to be an adult on set. I read the script when it got down to the final callbacks. It was funny, a family comedy; it was smartly written. However, I was also eleven, and I don’t think I fully understood the impact of how big the show could be. I didn’t realize there was even an option that it could go that far, so I thought it was really good, but I don’t know if I fully saw it. I didn’t watch a ton of TV growing up, so I don’t think I really knew what comes of a show once it gets big, other than that people watch it a lot. I didn’t know about the awards and all the other stuff that comes with it. I didn’t know what the possibilities were.”
Having most of her life available to the public eye has been difficult for Winter. It has taken her some time to find the balance between her private and public life. Over the years she has learned to “try to stay out of the public eye as much as possible.” Now, this does not mean shutting the public out of her life but rather being more careful about what she does make public about herself. Winter now does her best to avoid “getting into tabloids or sharing too much that is personal.” Winter continues, “[I also avoid] trying to be something that I am not to please the internet. I think there is some level of privacy that people who have some sort of level of celebrity—I say celebrity with disdain because I think it is a stupid word—but there is nothing that people on TV are entitled to. For me, I learned to keep some things private for myself and a secret.” The reason why this has been so difficult is that Winter wants to be able to be as normal as possible, and what that normally would mean is using social media as any other young adult would and posting moments on Instagram. “Everybody likes to post everything on Instagram [and be able to openly] talk about their family or relationships. I realized at the start of this year that the reason people get into all those stupid rumors and stories is fueled often by posts [that are more personal]. So I try to post things that are more relevant to my career and keep some things private so I can have bits of my life that are not public.” Keeping parts of her life private has been difficult, but it has helped Winter learn how to manage outside criticism and grow.
TOP by ZARA / EARRINGS by BAUBLEBAR
Self-confidence is something that most people struggle with at one point or another. Being confident is something that Winter has struggled with, especially under the public eye. Winter saw how much she became obsessed with what people thought of her, what an audience who didn’t know her personally was saying of her. “When I was 14 to 16, in high school, I cared about what people thought about me,” Winter says. “And not what my classmates were saying but more what was on the Internet, since there were a lot more people who said things directly. In school, it was more like whispers that maybe I heard or maybe I didn’t.” This created an entirely different source of insecurity for Winter, causing her to attempt to find ways to alter herself to please the people who judged her. For example, people would comment about her hair or weight, and she “tried to change a few of those things.” However, quickly Winter realized that it didn't really change anything. “Nobody thought anything better of me, the criticism didn’t stop, nobody was ever going to be happy with the way I looked. So I realized that it didn’t matter... the only person that matters is me because I am the only one who has to live with me. These people don’t know me; they know what they see on the internet. You can’t change the way you look in a major way. You are who you are, and there is no problem with that. We are always harder on ourselves than we need to be. And I also think that sometimes we think people are criticizing us, but in reality, we are just doing it to ourselves. Taking time to think about that and understand what is going on and why you feel that way, instead of brushing it aside, is important. Why live hating yourself when there is no real reason to?”
“I really tried to change a few things when I was younger. people would comment about my weight or hair, and I tried to change a few of those things. I quickly realized that it didn’t really change anything. Nobody thought anything better of me, the criticism didn’t stop, nobody was ever going to be happy with the way I looked. So I realized that it didn’t matter...the only person that matters is me because I am the only one who has to live with me.”
While Winter has made great strides in her personal journey with self-love, she recognizes that becoming completely comfortable in her own skin is a lifelong journey. “I don’t think there is anybody in the world who is 100% fully confident. I have definitely struggled with confidence; I still do,” Winter tells us. “I think it's something that everybody struggles with at some point in their lives in different aspects. I don’t think it is always necessarily bad; you always struggle to find out who you are, who you want to be, and ways to accept this. I think it is a lifelong journey. Being in front of the camera for so long definitely heightened my self-confidence issues. You go through many of the growth phases in your life when you [work on a show] that lasts so long, and all of those stages are not always so fabulous. As you get older, you change. The internet really sucks in a lot of ways because it's not just magazines putting [rumors or mean comments] in a blurb where you have to buy it to read the article. Now people can directly send it to you or share it with thousands of people instantly. [Self-love] is an ongoing struggle. I say a lot of times that I have gotten really far in my journey of accepting who I am, and I have, but I am not there yet. I can’t say I have no confidence issues, that I am fully cured. I just don’t know if people ever get to that point fully. There is nothing wrong with any of us in any way, and once you figure that out it makes it better. Everybody has different issues with confidence: speaking in public, weight, socializing. There are different journeys for everyone.”
DRESS & SHOES by VALENTINO
The photographs of Winter in this feature are all unretouched and with minimal makeup. Traditionally, magazine shoots call for a more high glam look, with layers upon layers of makeup and intense editing. While Winter was excited to do an unretouched shoot for this feature, she had certain concerns over the shoot itself. “It was definitely more of a difficult process for me,” Winter says. “Not because I have to be in makeup daily, I don’t, I'm not looking red carpet standard all the time. It is just something you think about like, ‘Oh, well I am going to be photographed in this setting. Oh no, what if I look weird? I got a pimple today!’ But it was nice to be able to do that.” The photographs show us a different side to Winter— strong, beautiful, and incredibly real.
“Everyone’s idea of beauty is different.”
“If we were all supposed to look a certain way then we would have probably evolved that way. We are all different, and that is the way it is. When we see Victoria’s Secret models, they are beautiful! There is no reason we should hate on them. We are not going to look like that person, nor do we need to. There is nothing better than looking like yourself and being unique. Nobody wants to be the same; the same is boring. We all have our different strengths, and so much makes up a person. Our features are not the only things that matter in life. Everyone's idea of beauty is different. It doesn’t matter if you think one person's beauty is the beauty you think every person should be. We should all be happy to be different.” These words are important for us to remember. With social media, it can be hard to have positive images of ourselves as we are constantly bombarded with unhealthy images of what we are “supposed” to look like. Winter is living proof that this idea is not true, and that no matter what, you can always find ways to love yourself.
STORY ANA SANDOVAL
PHOTOS ALLEGRA MESSINA
MAKEUP SHEA HARDY
HAIR IAN JAMES
STYLIST SARA ALVITI
CREATIVE DIRECTION ANNA ZHANG
LOCATION ANDAZ WEST HOLLYWOOD