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A review by dragonbitebooks
I Was an Alien Fashion Model by Ivy Hamid
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Review originally published on my website, DragonBiteBooks.com
This one surprised me. I took a chance on a free digital download and found a charming, imaginative, heartfelt book about body positivity and the mental strain put on individuals by a fashion industry pushing impossible beauty standards—made even more unachievable by photo and video editing—and standards that are detrimental to the health of their models and those who want to look like them.
Hiding from bullies, Kat Habib, overweight by the current standards of American fashion, is accidentally teleported onto an alien ship with the contents of a not-inclusive clothing store’s back room. There she inspires a fashion designer and a ship of aliens from different species who all compliment her beauty and her full, rounded figure. With days until an important show that could make or break the fashion house, Madam Xanis scraps her original line to create a new line inspired by Kat’s beauty and the pleated blue tunic and capris that she is wearing when she is teleported aboard the ship.
Eager for a reason to skip a mandatory school event and its terrible, unflattering uniform, Kat agrees to stay with the ship as the muse for the new collection. She becomes friends with the aliens aboard and invested in the survival of the fashion brand and her new friends’ careers and lives. But the more she is exposed to the demands of the fashion industry of the galaxy, the more she finds it exploitative and exclusionary, favoring impossible, over-the-top designs meant to flatter a single species, to which the entirety of the galaxy aspires, despite their varied anatomies. As the industry bigshots turn against Madam Xanis and her team, the line and their part in the competition become about more than winning, more even than presenting a trendsetting style or the survival of the company—it becomes about normalizing and idealizing diversity and clothes meant to fit each individual instead of a single aesthetic based on the anatomy of a single species.
Made an influencer overnight on the galaxy’s version of Instagram, Kat challenges the norms by posting her unedited photos and photos that include those whom the fashion industry has deemed ugly—a clear and inimitable example of rebellion that young readers can follow.
The galaxy around the story is well-developed, interesting, and unique. The fashion competition honors a deceased designer, who has been or almost been deified by her species (Madam Xanis’ and the species that sets fashions for the galaxy) and by the galaxy. There are creative technologies that allow for interspecies interaction and the visitation of different species to others’ homeworlds. There are companies and corporations with their own hierarchies and motives. There is a system of laws that seems to reflect the Star Trek’s Prime Directive. Earth is a “banned planet,” a “Pre-Spacefaring Civilization,” deemed not ready for interaction with other species, a ban enforced by the Galactic Traffic Alliance. There is a class system that reminds me a touch of Firefly’s with the Outer Rim planets being mainly low and working class and rarely interacted with by the other planets despite ships’ making speedy travel accessible; Kat pretends to be from a mining ship in the Outer Rim, her new friends trusting in the galaxy’s lack of awareness about that region to hide her species—and—SPOILERS AHEAD—this works! Kat is never called out as being from a banned planet.
The characters aboard Madam Xanis’ ship are likable and three-dimensional—Kat especially—but during the fashion competition itself, I found it very difficult to keep track of the other players and their fashion lines. Two besides Xanis felt like characters with personalities; the other four I found fairly interchangeable. I had to do some searches in my e-book and bookmark their walks on the runway to follow the evaluations of the judges later and pair those evaluations to the outfits and to the designers—because I did choose a favorite on the runway, and I wanted to know how that designer—not just how Xanis—faired in the competition.
The story’s ending is not a fairy tale with lessons learned and taken to heart by all but rather a new path forward for the fashion house, a restructuring of their company around diversity and a new alliance and mission. Though the story wraps up well, Hamid has left herself open to exciting sequels and a return of the diverse and forward-thinking cast.
While diversity, equity, and inclusion policies are being threatened and eliminated by those companies and organizations that marginalized communities had come to view as allies, this is a fun story to challenge those against such programs.
This one surprised me. I took a chance on a free digital download and found a charming, imaginative, heartfelt book about body positivity and the mental strain put on individuals by a fashion industry pushing impossible beauty standards—made even more unachievable by photo and video editing—and standards that are detrimental to the health of their models and those who want to look like them.
Hiding from bullies, Kat Habib, overweight by the current standards of American fashion, is accidentally teleported onto an alien ship with the contents of a not-inclusive clothing store’s back room. There she inspires a fashion designer and a ship of aliens from different species who all compliment her beauty and her full, rounded figure. With days until an important show that could make or break the fashion house, Madam Xanis scraps her original line to create a new line inspired by Kat’s beauty and the pleated blue tunic and capris that she is wearing when she is teleported aboard the ship.
Eager for a reason to skip a mandatory school event and its terrible, unflattering uniform, Kat agrees to stay with the ship as the muse for the new collection. She becomes friends with the aliens aboard and invested in the survival of the fashion brand and her new friends’ careers and lives. But the more she is exposed to the demands of the fashion industry of the galaxy, the more she finds it exploitative and exclusionary, favoring impossible, over-the-top designs meant to flatter a single species, to which the entirety of the galaxy aspires, despite their varied anatomies. As the industry bigshots turn against Madam Xanis and her team, the line and their part in the competition become about more than winning, more even than presenting a trendsetting style or the survival of the company—it becomes about normalizing and idealizing diversity and clothes meant to fit each individual instead of a single aesthetic based on the anatomy of a single species.
Made an influencer overnight on the galaxy’s version of Instagram, Kat challenges the norms by posting her unedited photos and photos that include those whom the fashion industry has deemed ugly—a clear and inimitable example of rebellion that young readers can follow.
The galaxy around the story is well-developed, interesting, and unique. The fashion competition honors a deceased designer, who has been or almost been deified by her species (Madam Xanis’ and the species that sets fashions for the galaxy) and by the galaxy. There are creative technologies that allow for interspecies interaction and the visitation of different species to others’ homeworlds. There are companies and corporations with their own hierarchies and motives. There is a system of laws that seems to reflect the Star Trek’s Prime Directive. Earth is a “banned planet,” a “Pre-Spacefaring Civilization,” deemed not ready for interaction with other species, a ban enforced by the Galactic Traffic Alliance. There is a class system that reminds me a touch of Firefly’s with the Outer Rim planets being mainly low and working class and rarely interacted with by the other planets despite ships’ making speedy travel accessible; Kat pretends to be from a mining ship in the Outer Rim, her new friends trusting in the galaxy’s lack of awareness about that region to hide her species—and—SPOILERS AHEAD—this works! Kat is never called out as being from a banned planet.
The characters aboard Madam Xanis’ ship are likable and three-dimensional—Kat especially—but during the fashion competition itself, I found it very difficult to keep track of the other players and their fashion lines. Two besides Xanis felt like characters with personalities; the other four I found fairly interchangeable. I had to do some searches in my e-book and bookmark their walks on the runway to follow the evaluations of the judges later and pair those evaluations to the outfits and to the designers—because I did choose a favorite on the runway, and I wanted to know how that designer—not just how Xanis—faired in the competition.
The story’s ending is not a fairy tale with lessons learned and taken to heart by all but rather a new path forward for the fashion house, a restructuring of their company around diversity and a new alliance and mission. Though the story wraps up well, Hamid has left herself open to exciting sequels and a return of the diverse and forward-thinking cast.
While diversity, equity, and inclusion policies are being threatened and eliminated by those companies and organizations that marginalized communities had come to view as allies, this is a fun story to challenge those against such programs.