How are we supposed to love our bodies if the world’s most gorgeous women have to have the pictures of their body’s photoshopped to be in a magazine? This past week I was looking through edited photos of one of my favorite models, Gigi Hadid. Gigi naturally has stunning beauty marks over her stomach and neck, and I believe it is one of the characteristics that add some beauty and individuality to her as a model. If you take the time to look through her photos in Victoria's Secret, Swimsuit Illustrated and Vogue every beauty mark is gone, her stomach and neck are completely clear with no sign of any individuality. Her beauty marks are something that she embraces on her own Instagram account and on the runway. But if you look at most high fashion magazines her beauty marks have all been photoshopped and taken away. She is not the first and won’t be the last model to be photoshopped for a magazine, but at some point it needs to come to an end.
Young girls look up to these models and what lessons are they going to learn? By looking at these photos they are going to learn that if you are not an overly thin, perfect plain skin, tall girl than you are not beautiful. In an age where social media already enables girls' confidence issues we do not need the world’s most beautiful women to be fixed. What kind of message are we sending if the world’s most beautiful girls have to have their body fixed? The answer is that no woman is naturally beautiful and they all need to be fixed to perfection and that should not be the lesson we are sending. I understand that magazines and fashion companies are trying to put out the best image they can make, but the message they are sending is no girl will ever be perfect in their natural skin. Their beliefs may be wrong.
Most companies believe they need flawless photos although their beliefs are starting to be put to the test by a handful of businesses that want to change this stereotype. Take the company Aerie for example. A few seasons ago Aerie started their #Aeriereal campaign, “The Real You Is Sexy.” The idea behind their campaign launch was that they wanted to show real girls in their photos so they stopped photoshopping their campaigns. The girls are all natural with stomach rolls, beauty marks and tattoos all left in place. The models were still naturally skinny, beautiful girls but the purpose of the campaign was to show that girls should be confident in themselves just as they are. Recently, they introduced their first plus sized models. According to Business Insider, Aerie's sales increased by 15 percent in 2015 compared to that of a 3 percent increase for Victoria's Secrets’ sales, a company that has been caught photoshopping their models numerous times. The result seems to be that girls like the idea of models that they can relate to instead of the fantasy of a Victoria's Secret Angel. It seems that more companies are starting to catch onto the idea that a natural girl can also sell, if not sell more, than that of a photo shopped model. Sports Illustrated just had a plus size model on their cover for the first time in the magazine’s history and Barbie just came out with a whole line of Barbie’s of all sizes and colors.
While it may be fun to live the fantasy of an Angel we need to think of the effect that that unattainable fantasy can cause on girls and show our generation and future generation that the “Real You Is Sexy!"
