Miss Chrissy’s school holiday workshop all about teaching new girls old tricks
WHAT happens when you put 14 tweens in a room with hair brushes, makeup and a pair of sisters with a passion for empowering women? Step inside Miss Chrissy’s holiday workshop with a difference.
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MISS Chrissy has many dreams for the 14 tweens sitting in front of her.
She hopes they learn to give compliments away freely. She wants them to become a gentle breeze rather than a blustering wind. She yearns for them to use their charming powers for good, not evil.
And she hopes they embrace all these things before they next use Snapchat.
“We want to give them self-worth so their next social media activity might be one of strength and beauty rather than sexy and trashy,” Chrissy Keepence says of the girls who have signed up for her ‘Hair, Makeup, Manners and Deportment’ holiday workshop at Robina Community Centre.
“The future’s in their hands,” adds sister and fellow teacher Veronica Neave, aka Miss Ronnie. “Giving them a few tools to help them be more confident about being women can only be a good thing.”
Particularly in a world where Miley Cyrus rides wrecking balls in her undies and the Hollywood film Mean Girls is akin to a documentary for some little ladies.
“Making someone smile feels really good and how much does it cost to make someone smile with a compliment?” Chrissy asks the girls.
“That’s right — it’s free … now turn to the person next to you and if there’s something about them you think is really cool or nice, tell them what it is.”
Miss Chrissy’s style wouldn’t work for every girl but like, whatever. These eight to 12-year-olds lap it up.
“I like your dress,” smiles one. “Your hairband is really pretty,” says another, delicately running her fingers across the band to show her appreciation.
The sold-out workshop is an extension of The Lindy Charm School, which Chrissy founded 15 years ago to help women tap into the fine art of vintage styling and etiquette, and empower them to bring out their inner beauty and confidence along the way.
Chrissy’s late mother was the one who said she needed to share such wisdom with schoolgirls, especially given some have never even heard of words like posture, poise and grace.
“You know when you feel a gentle breeze on a really hot day?” Chrissy says to the class. “Then on a cold winter’s day you have this blustering, blowing wind.
“You want to be the gentle breeze that enters the room and the way you do that is having a really nice posture and that stems from poise, which is feeling good about yourself.
“You want to own the room but not dominate it.”
This is no lecture though.
Practical tips in hair brushing, makeup and grooming dominate the 90-minute session, most of them handed to Chrissy by older women who used natural means to enhance their features, rather than trying to transform who they were.
“There is something about now passing on the baton as we get older,” Veronica says.
And when the workshop comes to an end and her students head home to tell their mums about the Wonder Woman pose and how bicarb soda can fix green swimming pool hair, what goes through their teacher’s mind?
“That I made a difference,” Chrissy says.
“I know it’s only on a small scale but I go home and think ‘I did a good thing today, I made myself proud and I know I made my mum proud’.”
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