A Lot Like Eve: Fashion, Faith and Fig-Leaves
Ebook
A remarkable personal insight into female body image, spirituality and the defiance of cultural expectations.
Joanna Jepson was born with a facial deformity that led to her being mercilessly bullied through childhood and adolescence whilst a strict evangelical upbringing imposed further challenges. Reconstructive facial surgery and a religious meltdown left her unrecognizable and disorientated, and triggered a search for identity and belonging.
After ordination, a spell in the cloisters of a Welsh convent and a burst of headline-hitting fame in relation to the cleft palate abortions in the news a few years ago, Joanna became the first Chaplain to the London College of Fashion, with unique opportunities to explore the world of self-image.
Not just an autobiography, A Lot Like Eve exposes the cultural idols and preoccupations that hook so many women into trying to prove that they are worthwhile in the way that the world expects. Like the first (metaphorical) woman, Eve, we too are still trying to pretend that we are wonderfully adorned by our own kind of fig-leaves.
A remarkable personal insight into female body image, spirituality and the defiance of cultural expectations.
Exposes and reflects on the myriad ways in which women are duped, cajoled and flattered into trying to create the perfect self-image
How the loss of religion can lead to the discovery of faith
The struggle to reconcile body image, faith, fashion, consumerism, fame and silence
Makes accessible the wisdom of the monastic tradition (not normally associated with fashion and consumerism!)
In the beginning...
Prologue
1 The Insiders
2 Baptism
3 Exile
4 Angels and Demons
5 Good News Crusaders
6 Tongues
7 Revival
8 Poisoned Pens
9 The First Leaf
10 Not God's: Mine
11 Kafir and Caliphates
12 Laying Out the Bodies
13 Alastair
14 About Face
15 Undoing
16 Hot Worship Leaders and Godly Wives
17 At Home in a Stable
18 Fish Out of Water
19 Napkins, Nails and Piercings
20 Saved through Childbirth
21 Turned Tables
22 Captain Sensible
23 Hippy Chick and Punk Boy
24 The Time of Your Life
25 Tractors and Silence
26 Stealth Nettle Farming
27 Ground E
28 Valentine Message
29 St Bob, Patron Saint of Curates
30 Thursday Morning Crem Rota
31 A Holy Place in the World
32 Nuns' Tea Party
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
This is a brave, moving and thoughtful book and I absolutely loved it. I read it on a train, wearing cheap mascara, and got off at the other end, elated and looking like a panda.
Joanna writes so powerfully and so authentically – this comes from the heart.
Honest, vulnerable, moving, entertaining and challenging.
- Title: A Lot Like Eve: Fashion, Faith and Fig-Leaves
- Author: Joanna Jepson
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
- Print Publication Date: 2015
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781472913180, 9781472913173, 1472913175, 1472913183
- Resource ID: LLS:9781472913180
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-05-13T22:05:23Z
Joanna Jepson is an Anglican priest who was catapulted into the public consciousness when she challenged the abortion of a 28-week foetus for bilateral cleft lip and palate. As the first Chaplain to the London College of Fashion, Joanna created The Empty Hanger Project, a fashion workshop exploring themes of ambition, belonging, sustainability, identity and purpose.
She is a regular contributor to programmes including BBC One Big Questions, Sunday Morning Live, and BBC Radio 2 Pause for Thought, and has written op eds for the Times, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail.
Joanna is now based in Wells, Somerset.