Yesterday I was shopping at ASOS. While choosing clothes, I had so much pleasure to look at the photos of the models! They all are relaxed, standing in free poses. The skin is not touched by photoshop — ASOS company officials refused to retouch any photos on the website. There are women of different sizes, with different types of shapes and skin color. They have folds and some of them have stretch marks. Not plastic — natural.
The skin on their thighs is exactly what it is in life: it is crushed if rubber from underwear cuts into it. The photos themselves are aesthetic. With good lightings and colors. And in the photos, there are REAL women. And they look EXACTLY how they look in real life. And that is amazing.
The more we see real, diverse women with different parameters, the more loyal and calm we are feeling to them (and to ourselves)! I noticed this when I started following girls on Instagram with different types of shapes. You are not just starting to understand that all bodies are normal. You really get your mind used to being open to different people and seeing beauty in all of them, and not in some narrow set of parameters.
But when you only have long-legged models in front of your eyes, it makes everything that deviates from the standard seem somehow wrong. Awkward. Ugly. But what is more important is that you start seeing yourself that way if your body is not the same. And you are not the same in 99% — the ideal, which is achieved by Photoshop, is unattainable in life.
Therefore, the representation of different (!) people in the media and social media is so important. And that is why it is so great that brands, one by one, refuse to retouch photos and cease to bring the figures of their models to a single common denominator.
For comparison, by the way: yesterday I also made an order on some website like fashionnova.com. Their models are too stunning, but... 90% of the photos are with hellish (!) Photoshopped waist, enlarged booty, completely smooth skin and removed folds and dents from clothes.
It's time to remind the world what real women look like.
Do you agree?
