The popular clothing/lingerie brand, Aerie, launched its “Aerie Real” campaign in 2014 where it featured models in untouched photos. This directly challenges typical lingerie branding, such as Victoria’s Secret Angels who, as even their name “Angel” suggests, are not the typical women you see walking down the street.

Aerie goes against those “unrealistic” standards by presenting this idea of real. Emphasis on idea of real. I applaud Aerie for choosing not to airbrush their models’ photos and for telling paying customers that is okay to be “the real you.” While the campaign is a decent start in the right direction of positive body image, there is certainly a long journey ahead.

First of all, the models the brand uses do not need to be retouched. They are still beautiful, slender, blemish-free, and hitting every single media-produced beauty standard. As far as the genetic lottery, they hit the jackpot and that is great for them. These girls don’t need retouching, and suggesting that they even do is honestly a disgrace.

In a way, the whole “untouched and real and still sexy” is making body image issues even worse. These girls are still look absolutely flawless, as if they were retouched. The fact that there is no photoshop work on these photos and they still look better than one of my selfies after four different Instagram filters is, honestly, quite discouraging. At least we average folk can usually comfort ourselves by blaming excessive retouching for why we don’t look like that, but now Aerie has found girls who are genuinely flawless. If the brand wanted to showcase "real" girls, there would be more diversity among the appearances of these models.

The models (though naturally beautiful) still wear make up, are dressed up in cute, attractive underwear and photographed on a professional set by a professional photographer with a very expensive camera. This is not a selfie taken with an iPhone after rolling out of bed, which would be a much more “real” photography opportunity.

Now, I may just be overly critical with a hint of cynical, because for the most part, the campaign has had positive reviews and even increased sales. However, I’m still not buying into this whole “real” gimmick. I don’t believe that creating an illusion of positive body image while directly correlating with unrealistic beauty standards just so a girl will feel comfortable enough to purchase that expensive thong is genuine enough. When Aerie plucks average, non-models from the streets who have acne, bellies, stretch marks, frizzy hair, pale skin, and everything else society criticizes… maybe then I will be satisfied. Start to highlight the realities of being human (body fat, birth marks, etc.) in a positive light that girls can actually relate to and feel confident about, and then maybe the campaign will be beneficial beyond Aerie’s gross profit.

In Aerie's defense, the real problem is not in this campaign, but rather the fact that we have to tell girls that they should love themselves for who they are and that real is sexy. Those are things that every woman should already know, yet decades of false beauty expectations have blinded women of their own beauty. It’s a shame that Aerie has completely changed the game of selling pretty bras by promising girls that they don’t need to be something they are not, when that shouldn't even be an issue in the first place.

This campaign is progress, yes, but the damage society has done to body image will need a little more attention than a clever hashtag on a photo of a pretty girl.

(This photo is from the campaign, the text is not.)