Zendaya Thinks You're Perfect Just the Way You Are

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Oakland's own Zendaya has been one of the breakout fashion stars of 2015. Who can forget her Vivienne Westwood Oscars dress, the architectural Fausto Puglisi number at the Met Gala, or every spot-on look she rocked during Fashion Week? Zendaya's hair, makeup, and clothes are flawless, and the folks at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum have taken note: This weekend, the San Francisco location introduced two new figures immortalizing the singer-actress-model's on-point style.

Seeing the star stand between her wax doppelgangers—dressed in two of her red-carpet hits from Rubin Singer and Material Girl—we were impressed by how much the likenesses echoed the young woman in front of us. But as one of the year's most vocal advocates of body acceptance, it's no surprise that Zendaya insisted that the copies stay true to the original. This, after all, is the same person who called out Modeliste last month for photoshopping her "19-year-old hips and torso." (The magazine quickly apologized and pulled the images from its website.)

When we ask about the incident, Zendaya responds, "I know too many people in my family or who are really close to me who deal with [body consciousness]. It's a real thing, and I'm thankful that it never was something that bothered me." The idea of photoshopping perceived "flaws", however, definitely irks the star.

"When I saw the [Modeliste] pictures, I knew immediately because I know what my body looks like," she explains. "Could you imagine if I really was sensitive about this? What that would do to me? How that would affect me? Thank goodness I don't have that kind of complex when it comes to my body. But if I did, that would really tear me down. That's messed up. People can give me a trillion compliments about my body, but, at the end of the day, it apparently also needs to be photoshopped."

Her approach to confidence is refreshing in an age when Instagrammers regularly edit and filter themselves to unattainable standards of perfection. Then again, she tells Racked that she defines perfection differently.

"Perfect isn't a standard. It's something you create for yourself. You have to be perfect for yourself. You can't live up to someone else's standard, you have to live up to your own. In my eyes, I'm perfect. It's not being cocky. It's loving yourself; being confident."

Smart. Down-to-Earth. Confident. That's it. Zendaya for president.