A new style

Claire was an aspiring violinist. She moved from her small town in Kentucky to New York where she would have bigger chances to succeed. However, the competition was tough, so the only offer she got was a shady announcement which mentioned helping young musicians succeed in their careers.

She had a rehearsal and was selected for the program. “Congratulations, you really impressed us with your skills! Thanks to our program you’ll get the best chances to succeed in your career! This will entail binding your artistic performances to our brand exclusively for 3 years, you know, we are going to invest a good amount of money on you and would like to see you artistically blossom within our brand of course! ” “Sure, that sounds… terrific” – Claire had no other options so the idea to only work for them for 3 years was not a big constriction. If anything, it made her feel secure. “What kind of investments do you have in mind?” “Oh, you know, we’ll leave the technicalities to our marketing experts, names, clothes, they might even slightly alter your appearance to make it more suitable to your audience’s taste…” “Wow, that sounds a bit extreme to me” – said Claire, suddenly feeling there was something shady there – “No worries, they’ll probably just get you a new set of concert dresses and a makeup artist” “That would be pretty nice actually! I just demand they won’t touch my hair, I’m really vain about my blonde mane and I wouldn’t change it to fit any diktat from above.” “Sure, we can include that in the contract: here – Keeping blonde hair”.

After having settled down that, there was another shady section about the music she was obliged to play “You would have to play the authors the producers demand you to play, would that be ok for you?” “Well, that’s how it usually goes in this kind of contracts I guess” She was expecting to have to make her repertoire a bit more popular than usual, like playing more Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms instead of the less known composers she preferred but she was kind of expecting this, so she signed the contract.

A few days later, she was scheduled for a visit in a medical facility where she was asked all sorts of questions, including where did her family live, where did her boyfriend live and so on. Unfortunately for her, her parents dies when she was a teenager, she broke up with her boyfriend as soon as she moved away from her hometown and she still basically didn’t know anybody in NY. Her closest relative was an old aunt living in Pennsylvania. She was told she was just going to get a few routinely blood tests, when she started to feel dizzy. The needle in her arm was pumping a powerful anaesthetic into her veins.

As soon as she lost conscience, the plastic surgeons started to operate on her. The changes required to her appearance were drastic and the producers didn’t’ want to waste the opportunity they saw in her. She had a great talent but classical music didn’t sell so well apart for a few people. Why not exploiting those musical skills in a way more commercial kind of music? How about a urban singer which is actually extremely talented? It would require lots of retraining, sure, but she would stand out so much! Of course, that would entail drastically altering her appearance and that was what the surgeons were busy with. They started by reshaping her facial features beyond recognition: her nose became flat and broad, her lips were unnaturally filled up, her blue eyes were covered in fake-looking pink permanent contact lenses, her whole face proportions were remodelled, erasing her Nordic features and giving her all the signs of an African background. Her breasts were inflated, making them look fake and plastic and her skin was permanently darkened to make it match the mocha colour which was becoming the new beauty reference. They were obliged to keep her hair blonde, but were left free to replace her natural blonde mane with a platinum blonde wig permanently glued to her scalp.

Weeks later, when she recovered, they dressed her up in a very revealing and trashy dress and woke her up.

“What happened, why did this take so long?” then she noticed her brown arms and went blank, not being able to make any sense of that. As soon as she took a glance to the nearest mirror, she started screaming

“What? Is this me? What the f**k have you done? You monsters! Nobody will recognise me now! My skin! My face! Oh f**k, is that what they meant in the contract?” “Precisely, my dear!” – said the producer, who had been observing the whole scene “I was expecting some criticisms from your side, so I am here to remind you of your duties. You are legally obliged to work for us for three years now, else you’ll have to pay a fine equal to the amount of money we spent on you, which is superior to one million dollars” “That’s a lot of money, I don’t have them!” “Of course not” “How do you even expect me to play the violin with these nails? Do you think an African American violinist would be more commercially appealing to a more diverse audience?” A part of her was starting to see the good side of the whole situation when she got a cold shower “Oh, we didn’t hire you to play that kind of music! We need you skills as an urban singer and dancer. You will start your training soon. We had to alter your appearance to give you better chances of success, altering your ethnicity was part of that. We hope you won’t mind but you certainly aren’t a bigot, are you?” Claire covered her face with her brown hands, hiding her anger and desperation. There was no way out at this point, they had tricked her into something unthinkable of. She, a black trashy singer? One of those music stars who were more appreciated for shaking their fake butts and boobs than for what they were singing? How could she have done this to herself, sacrificing everything to her career, even her own identity? F**k, she used to look like every man’s ideal wife, now she still looked hot but more as the dream of fuckboys or the kind of girl guys would be ashamed to introduce to their parents, unless she… No, she would have never dated a black guy

After months of brainwashing, Claire now LaBlonde was starting to sound convincing, even though a part of her was hating that.

After three years, she had given up her fake blonde hair color, the last remnant of her previously identity as she was getting negative comments about not embracing her heritage, so she started to show a more natural looking dark, curly wig. The same went for her eyes, which were now permanently covered in black pigment. She felt so defeated at that point she actually requested the changes herself, completely enslaved by what her public demanded from her.

When her contract was about to expire, she tried to pick up the violin again and realised her new skills had completely overwritten the old ones, maybe that was their plan all along. With one droplet of tear falling on her heavily made-up face, she realised that she was LaBlonde for good, a trashy black urban singer and her old identity was lost forever.