Marie Southard Ospina is fashion and beauty editor who’s fascinated by Photoshop and its use by women’s magazines in the relentless pursuit of perfection.
Inspired by recent experiments where women sent photos of themselves around the world and asked to be “made beautiful” according to different cultural standards, Marie — a plus-size woman — was interested to see what retouchers from different cultures would make of her looks.
“As most plus-size women know, there are certain repeated phrases thrown around at women of size quite consistently: ‘You have such a pretty face; if only you lost some weight.’ ‘You’re pretty for a big girl’,” she wrote for Bustle.
“I became increasingly curious as to how editors would treat a photo of me if asked to edit it, what with my chubby cheeks, double chin, thick shoulders and chest and rounder, fuller face,” she added. “What would they do with these traits? Would they all slim me down in the aid of ‘making me look beautiful’?”
Top Comments
Vietnam slimmed down the first woman the most.
That's some bad photoshop. The editors must have said for their 8 year old to have fun.