Accepting Imperfection

Finals are finally finished and I can resume blogging! YEAHS!!! There have been so many things that I have wanted to talk about but couldn’t slip away to write.

One of the most predominate one being H&M’s models. If you have not already, it was discovered that all the models appearing in H&M’s advertisements (of any sort) are actually computer generated. The heads of the models are those of actual people, however everything below the neck is a computer creation. When asked about this, Mr. Andersson a H&M spokesperson’s response was: “This is not about ideals or to show off a perfect body, we do this to demonstrate an item of clothing.”

Excuse me?!?! If the entire purpose of this is to demonstrate an article of clothing then why not use real life models?! Why are fashion companies so afraid of the “imperfections” of the human body? It has long been standing that advertising uses altering techniques such as airbrushing and Photoshopping, to “perfect” the images before they are presented to the public. However, H&M has reached an all-time low. These are not just altered women they are electronically generated images. If you ever thought that images presented before were unrealistic, this is a whole new level of low in my opinion. Women do not all have the same dimensions of arms, chest, bust size, butt size, anything. Each woman is unique, and I really don’t understand why advertising cannot use the uniqueness of each woman to their advantage.

My favourite quote in response to this is from Seth Matlins (told to the Huffington Post): “To all involved, we say, keep doing what you are doing what you’re doing if you must – just tell us you’ve done it. Maybe then we will realize that the women in those ads and spreads are about as real as Avatar, and thus, we’ll see it as escapism and not as realism to which we don’t measure up.” Maybe asking these companies to stop altering these images is “unrealistic” and if it is why cannot we make it even more evident that these images are not real. Make it so that we openly know that these images are false, and maybe from there we can deconstruct them as not relevant to our ideas of beauty. Distinctly distancing real women from advertising women as two distinctly separate things.