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Fashioning Reality: A New Generation of Entrepreneurship

by Ben Barry

Ben Barry’s life story should make for good reading. Born in Ottawa, Barry spent his teens forming his own modelling agency and recruiting normal folks of all shapes and sizes (as well as more traditionally shaped and sized models). His work to present consumers with more realistic role models, and his business rationale for it, garnered him recognition and led to his instrumental role in the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. Oh, and he was on Oprah before he was old enough to drive.

For all the promise of his unconventional adolescence, Barry turns out to be an unbearably glib narrator of his own life story, and Fashioning Reality suffers because of it. In the book, Barry’s ideas about women’s issues and business marketing are given the same passing mention as his favourite drink at Starbucks or one of his many best gal pals. Barry inspires fierce loyalty in his clients and friends, but in print, his tactics come off as mere arrogance and shtick.

It’s a shame, because Barry’s an interesting guy. In Fashioning Reality, though, he shows a marked inability to write about his personal life and trials, which is more than a little odd for a book that is part memoir. He’s more at home discussing his ideas. His central thesis of a “Balanced Contract” is, briefly, that capitalism and social consciousness aren’t mutually exclusive concepts in the business environment, and that young people are uniquely positioned to make big changes to corporate culture.

It’s exciting to see a young Canadian influencing the international scene, particularly in an industry that needs to
re-examine its responsibility to its customers. But it’s too bad that this superficial account of Barry’s extraordinary life lacks the creative energy and originality that he brings to his business.

 

Reviewer: Katy Pedersen

Publisher: Key Porter Books

DETAILS

Price: $34.95

Page Count: 256 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 978-1-55263-820-0

Released: March

Issue Date: 2007-3

Categories: Memoir & Biography