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I am really excited to
see advertising campaigns starting to challenge what has become the norm with
ridiculously photoshopped models, displaying an impossible ideal of beauty.
Just in the last few weeks, I’ve seen American Eagle lingerie brand, Aerie using beautiful models, but with no digital manipulation, and America’s newest lingerie model is a beautiful 62 year old woman.
Not to mention Dove’s amazing ‘The power of real beauty’ campaign that encourages women to focus on aspects of themselves that they like.
Yet, I am amazed to hear some responses from women on the Aerie campaign like, ‘…how much photoshop is required on a pretty, slim 15 year old? So they just use young ladies with pretty curves instead of supermodels.’
And ‘they're still models, they're not real sized women at all’.
Do we need to think only in extremes? Do we want advertising campaigns to go from over photoshopped supermodels to the girl next door? And if they did, would we buy the products? Would we like what we see?
It’s all very well to say that the media needs to speak to us in our own language, but who is it that they are selling to and who is buying these products? We are responding to the campaigns and we are buying the products.
I think as human beings, we like to see and appreciate beauty.
It has an aspirational element to it. I think it’s when the ‘aspiration’ isn’t real that it becomes dangerous to our self-esteems. I’m not even sure if we really know what is real anymore since we are bombarded with so much ‘fake’.
I do believe we need to challenge and expand our definition of beauty. As a colleague of mine said, ‘A rose isn’t more beautiful than a tulip, it’s just a different kind of beauty’.
So instead of defining beauty as a Victoria Secret supermodel who doesn’t even look like herself on a billboard once they have photoshopped her, lets start by appreciating beauty as it really is instead of the illusion of it.
Hopefully it will also bring us to a place where we can put our appreciation or aspiration of beauty in its rightful place. Aspiration is all it is.
The key is to appreciate your own beauty. If you can appreciate your own beauty, you can begin to appreciate the beauty of those around you too.
And I think as women, we could do a lot more to uplift each other and help each other feel fabulous about ourselves.
Follow Women24 on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
Just in the last few weeks, I’ve seen American Eagle lingerie brand, Aerie using beautiful models, but with no digital manipulation, and America’s newest lingerie model is a beautiful 62 year old woman.
Not to mention Dove’s amazing ‘The power of real beauty’ campaign that encourages women to focus on aspects of themselves that they like.
Yet, I am amazed to hear some responses from women on the Aerie campaign like, ‘…how much photoshop is required on a pretty, slim 15 year old? So they just use young ladies with pretty curves instead of supermodels.’
And ‘they're still models, they're not real sized women at all’.
Do we need to think only in extremes? Do we want advertising campaigns to go from over photoshopped supermodels to the girl next door? And if they did, would we buy the products? Would we like what we see?
It’s all very well to say that the media needs to speak to us in our own language, but who is it that they are selling to and who is buying these products? We are responding to the campaigns and we are buying the products.
I think as human beings, we like to see and appreciate beauty.
It has an aspirational element to it. I think it’s when the ‘aspiration’ isn’t real that it becomes dangerous to our self-esteems. I’m not even sure if we really know what is real anymore since we are bombarded with so much ‘fake’.
I do believe we need to challenge and expand our definition of beauty. As a colleague of mine said, ‘A rose isn’t more beautiful than a tulip, it’s just a different kind of beauty’.
So instead of defining beauty as a Victoria Secret supermodel who doesn’t even look like herself on a billboard once they have photoshopped her, lets start by appreciating beauty as it really is instead of the illusion of it.
Hopefully it will also bring us to a place where we can put our appreciation or aspiration of beauty in its rightful place. Aspiration is all it is.
The key is to appreciate your own beauty. If you can appreciate your own beauty, you can begin to appreciate the beauty of those around you too.
And I think as women, we could do a lot more to uplift each other and help each other feel fabulous about ourselves.
Follow Women24 on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
