perfect without photoshop

When you open an old magazine, one thing immediately stands out: the models have pores. I have stacks and stacks of magazines at home, including copies that are over 20 years old. Flipping through them, I realized that the models simply have skin, with pores, hairs, spots; just real-people skin. Now that there is Photoshop these are things you no longer see in the magazines, just like rolls of flab and dimples..

There is of course always a lot of discussion about this because magazines and advertisements would create such an unrealistic image and that is bad for the self-image of young women. And of course, looking at the perfect bodies of the Victoria's Secret girls and other stunning models can be quite confronting. Occasionally, a magazine decides to put the model on the cover without retouching, and that immediately becomes world news. In 2010, for example, Marie Claire US Jessica Simpson on the cover, with big texts saying “No make up, no retouching, no regrets.”

A flawless Jessica smiles at the readers, no wrinkles, no spots, nothing. The American brand American Eagle launched a new campaign in 2014 for the sister brand Aerie, a lingerie brand aimed at girls aged 15 to 21. The campaign is called “Aerie Real,” and the gigantic posters are still hanging on the walls in stores in New York. The idea of the campaign is that all models are not retouched, so how you see them in the photos is how they are in real life. The goal is to create a healthier and more realistic image of how women look and not to lie to the young target audience with unattainably perfect women.

How is this supposed to make me more confident?

But for me, that campaign has the opposite effect. With many photos, you can still think “yes, but she doesn’t look like that in real life, with so much Photoshop I can look like that too,” but with this campaign, that doesn’t apply. Those women are really that beautiful, they really have that body, apparently they don’t even need Photoshop while I don’t even come close to how they look even with Photoshop. How is this supposed to make me more confident?

Such a Jessica Simpson too. I don’t know, but hell no, I don’t look as radiant and pretty without makeup as she does. Why is this good for my self-image? The slogan that comes with the Aerie Real campaign is “The real you is sexy,” but apparently only if you naturally look that perfect.

In short, I’m not buying it. There is still no real representation of a women’s body and even if it might be a very good step in the right direction, as long as only naturally perfect women are allowed to be printed without Photoshop, we are really not there yet.