It seems like every day we are subjected to another photoshop scandal, where a woman’s body has been stretched and slimmed and smoothed beyond anything that could be accomplished by mere mortals; and it seems like every day we here at Mamamia call for the fashion industry to start presenting more real, authentic images of what women look like.
Well, now a brand has done it. A lingerie brand no less.
‘aerie’, the lingerie sister store for megabrand American Eagle, have released their Spring 2014 ad campaign – and it features all unairbrushed models.
Yes, they still have make-up and phenomenal lighting and genetics on their side – but aerie announced the ads are designed to “[challenge] supermodel standards by featuring unretouched models in their latest collection of bras, undies and apparel.”
It probably goes without saying that the photos are gorgeous. You can see one young woman’s dimples when she smiles. The natural curve of her stomach. Another woman’s tattoo. Another model’s arms still resemble arms, and haven’t been slimmed down to the bone.
The brand is also aimed at young women – between the ages of 15 to 21 – which makes their new campaign all the more admirable. It is young women in this age bracket who are often the most affected by the constant barrage of images of perfect, photoshopped bodies in the media each and every day.
aerie’s Jenny Altman told ABC News, “We left everything: beauty marks, tattoos. It’s a selling point because our customers represent this great demographic and they don’t get to see what girls their age really look like.”
Refinery29 reports that the brand also has pans to shake up its website, and make sure the models wearing certain sizes, ARE actually that size. i.e. if you want o see a picture of a DD bra, you will see a DD-sized woman wearing it. Which, as far as fashion websites are concerned, is pretty revolutionary.
Let’s have a virtual round of applause for aerie – and hope that other brands take note of how gorgeous these unretouched images. There’s so much beauty in real beauty.
And in case you need a reminder about WHY exactly we need to combat the unrealistic images presented to us by the fashion industry, we give you exhibits A through Z…
Top Comments
Well this is weird... I posted something yesterday and yet it hasn't shown up? Guess I'll write it again:
Love the ads, the girls are beautiful and they look fantastic. Love to see this sort of thing.
HOWEVER, you guys seem to have not actually read the text on the ads because one of their main taglines is "no more supermodels" or "no supermodels". They use it repeatedly. The girls in the ads clearly are not name models as I know my models pretty well and I don't recognise one of them. And yet your headline says that they used "un-retouched supermodels". It just seems like sloppy editing and you might want to change that as it is completely incorrect.
SO much prettier & more sexy than models are