Fashioning Reality shares Ben's adventures of starting and developing the Ben Barry Agency from the basement of his family home at age fourteen to operating international offices today. He takes the reader through his journey of entering the modeling business, discovering the singular beauty standard, and the crisis of conscience that led him to challenge the criteria for models.
In running a company that makes a profit by making social change, Ben is only one in a growing movement. In the book, he outlines this new generation of entrepreneurs and shares the stories of other business people – and particularly other youth – who are doing well by doing good.
Ben also takes from his experience to provide young people with advice on how to start and run their businesses that are part of this movement. He shatters the myth that young people have to wait until they obtain advanced academic degrees and decades of experience before they can begin their own companies. Instead, he explains how youth have all of the knowledge and skills to begin their own businesses today.