H&M is taking Photoshop to a whole ‘nother level

If H&M wanted to give consumers a virtual template for putting clothes on, why create one identical and unrealistically proportioned model? Wouldn’t it have been a better idea to make (or, I don’t know, hire) a group of models with diverse body shapes and sizes to give girls a real idea of how their clothes will fit?

One argument in favor of the virtually created models seems to be that they are no different than store mannequins and “it’s not that big of a deal.” Except for the fact that they are completely different from store mannequins. Store mannequins are plastic, often headless and don’t resemble real human people. No one is going to confuse the body of a mannequin with a living person.

These pictures are different, and that difference is insidious. The bodies of these models look like real, airbrushed women, which means the implicit message is that real women and girls can and should strive to look like them. Few girls are going to aspire to look like a store mannequin. Plenty of girls and women want to be models, and draw inspiration from pictures of models found in magazines and online. The virtual nature of these bodies is disguised, making them seem more attainable, even though they’re not.

Sign our petition demanding that H&M either end this practice or expand it to include customizable body types—a tool that they USED to have and that’s easily attainable through this technology. 

H&M puts real model heads on fake bodies. via Jezebel:

The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and “completely virtual,” the company has admitted. H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production. For now — in the future, even models’ faces won’t be considered perfect enough for online fast fashion, and we’ll buy all of our clothing from cyborgs. (This news sort of explains this.) But man, isn’t looking at the four identical bodies with different heads so uncanny? Duly noted that H&M made one of the fake bodies black. You can’t say that the fictional, Photoshopped, mismatched-head future of catalog modeling isn’t racially diverse. 

eta that literally no one will see: we’ve started a petition on Change.org asking H&M to either end this practice or expand it to include customizable body types—a tool they USED to have and that’s easily attainable through this technology. 

The Advertising Standards Authority received several complaints after seeing 17-year-old actress Dakota Fanning posing with an oversize bottle of the scent between her legs.

Complaints stated that the Twilight star was being portrayed in an irresponsible and sexualised manner. The ASA responded by stating: “We noted that the model was holding up the perfume bottle which rested in her lap between her legs and we considered that its position was sexually provocative. We understood the model was 17 years old but we considered she looked under the age of 16. We considered that the length of her dress, her leg and position of the perfume bottle drew attention to her sexuality. Because of that, along with her appearance, we considered the ad could be seen to sexualise a child.”

Coty, makers of Oh, Lola! said it did not believe the ad suggested the model was underage or that it was “inappropriately sexualised’ as it didn’t show any “private body parts or sexual activity”. They said the giant perfume bottle - shaped like a vase holding a blooming pink flower - was “provoking, but not indecent”.

Jacobs recently revealed to Women’s Wear Daily why he cast the teen star in the ads: “I’ve been a big fan of Dakota since the first time I saw her in a movie, and we made her a wardrobe in her size when she was 12, which was pretty incredible. When we were speaking about who to use in the Oh, Lola! fragrance ads - I had recently seen The Runaways . Dakota was in it, and I knew she could be this contemporary Lolita, seductive yet sweet.”

So like, regardless of whether or not this ad is totally creepy and should have been pulled (we think yes), has Marc Jacobs ever read Lolita? Someone should let him know that Lolita wasn’t a sweet temptress, but she was a child and Humbert Humbert was a pedophile. That statement alone suggests Jacobs actually is a creep who thinks sexualizing kids is totally a-ok so whatever, we’re not too sad about this ad campaign hitting a brick wall. 

From Jezebel:

To ask is this child too sexy is to put a child’s body under a kind of scrutiny that is (and should be) strange and unnatural, and that’s not a thing that should be taken lightly. But it’s one thing for a parent to take a photo of his or her little girl while she’s running around a beach in a pair of swimsuit bottoms. It’s another for a fashion magazine to take a photo of a 10-year-old sitting topless on a bed and publish it for a global audience. What steps are being taken to ensure Thylane is comfortable with these images? Is she aware that, to people older and more familiar with the commonplaces of fashion photography than she is, the way she is being portrayed reads as somewhat adult, somewhat sexualized? Is a 10-year-old truly capable of consenting to being shot in the nude — by a fashion industry client that is using her body to move product, no less? Is a 10-year-old capable of understanding the ramifications of that consent?

This whole piece is a great read that raises a lot of important questions and critiques the industry that produced the images rather than the model or her parents. Definitely check it out. 

Maybe we’re slow on the uptake, but Hailee Steinfeld’s Miu Miu campaign is surprisingly not as sexualized as we had feared (and this pizza picture, while adorable, totally proves they were trying super hard to keep it PG)! What do you think of her campaign?