#aeriereal

To any women who have watched a Victoria's Secret commercial and thought, “Wow I wish I looked like those women”;  well think again. Most of the girls you are seeing on those commercials or in those magazines are photoshopped to get consumers to buy their products. Everyone holds a standard, whether it’s a man or a woman, as to what they should look like.  A woman's sense of body confidence is so often influenced by the images of female beauty they see in media. aerie has started a new campaign called “aerie real” (Krupnick) which has been grabbing the attention of both genders. This campaign is where women who are not “rail thin”, the stereotypical women models, are being shot in aerie’s lingerie and are NOT being photoshopped.  This means that the professionals who photoshop the pictures after being taken, usually minimizing their love handles, paint on abs, make their legs thinner, slim their faces down, etc., are not doing this anymore due to the new campaign they are trying to promote towards women. aerie believes that all women, no matter what shape or size, are beautiful and deserve to be shown off to the world with as themselves. They are responding to the public’s backlash against photoshop and joining the movement for change. Every girl and woman should be happy in their own skin no matter what size or shape they are.  

Photoshop has been around for many years and has had brought about huge controversy. In a youtube video, you see a middle aged woman who is not rail thin go from having no makeup and not having her hair done to being a full blown rail thin model.  Photoshop is a very powerful tool that should be used for the good of people, not to hurt people's body image. I am not saying that photoshop is a bad at all, I am trying to say that the way it is used is wrong.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKlVyUJw3TM

Over the years, advertisements have used female physiques to persuade an audience to purchase the company's products, despite the gender it’s marketing towards. Companies market their products through it’s best form of advertisement; photos. This is the best way for companies to get their merchandise and products out there. Photos are convincing and motivating tools that can persuade people to purchase products.

No woman should have to look at an advertisement  and think, “This is what I have to look like to wear that to impress my significant other”. Victoria’s Secret is at fault for instilling this mentality. Victoria’s Secret Angels are models that are to the point of almost being sickly thin. Some may not agree with my opinion, and that's fine,  but in my eyes every Victoria's Secret model needs to eat a cheeseburger.  Every year when the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show airs, it proves the point that I am trying to make…. some women after watching this hour long show feel down about their appearance, no matter what body type they are. Every woman wants to feel great about themselves. These models, do not get me wrong are beautiful, but they put a stereotype in some men’s heads that their wife or girlfriend needs to looks like that.  

Body acceptance over the years has changed drastically since the 50s. At one point in time the stereotype of being “rail thin” was unheard of.

Those days and that acceptance of body type is coming back.  In NY Fashion week this past month there were plus sized models strutting down the runway in lingerie. These models are equally as beautiful as the models who are thinner.

(Krupnick, Ellie. "Aerie's Unretouched Ads 'Challenge Supermodel Standards' For Young Women." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2015.)