Big Idea

Well, since we're on a body image jag tonight ...

Here's a sane idea from Spain, via Ad Age:

LONDON (AdAge.com) -- Marketers in Spain could be banned from advertising certain beauty products and services before 10 p.m., as the government attempts to stamp out the growing number of eating disorders and improve the mental health of young women fixated on their weight and appearance.

<SNIP>

Ads for diet products, some beauty treatments and plastic surgery are now officially considered more dangerous for young people than commercials for alcohol, which can be advertised from 9 p.m.

The lower chamber of Spain's parliament has passed the law, and the upper chamber is expected to ratify it within weeks. It's unclear when the ban will go into effect.

The new law states: "Broadcasters cannot carry advertisements for things that encourage the cult of the body and have a negative impact on self-image -- such as slimming products, surgical procedures and beauty treatments -- which are based on ideas of social rejection as a result of one's physical image or that success is dependent on factors such as weight or looks."

"The ban is about product function rather than the content of the communication," said Alex Pallete, chief strategic officer at Lowe Group's Lola Madrid. "The goal is that no under-18s will be affected by mental issues like anorexia and bulimia. In Spain, people tend to go for non-surgical methods of slimming, like not eating or vomiting, but we have had a lot of immigration from Latin America, where plastic surgery is much more common, and their culture has influenced our culture."

Mr. Pallete said that in 2008, 7,000 ads were broadcast that now fall into the banned "body worship" categories. The beauty and hygiene segment is the third-biggest TV spender in Spain, accounting for $708 million in airtime in 2008.

While debating the 10 pm watershed for slimming products and plastic surgery, the government considered -- but eventually rejected -- a far more drastic ban that would have included all products advertised as "lite," potentially banning ads for a wide range of food and drinks like Coke Lite and light beer.

<SNIP>

Mr. Pallete predicts that advertisers will follow the example of cigarettes and alcohol, maintaining their budgets but diverting the money to sponsorships, events and online. Or they may just advertise late at night...

Spain, you might recall, has been ahead of the curve, so to speak, on body image issues. In 2006, after the starvation deaths of some models in South America, it banned ultra-thin girls from the catwalks of Madrid. A year later, it got major retailers such as the international Zara chain, to agree not to use display mannequins smaller than a size 6.

Which is all well and good.

But Spanish girls have access to media from all over Europe and the rest of the world. Unless every fashion editor and designer stops pushing skeletal teenagers onto the runways and into editorial pages, anorexia, bulimia and emotional disorders will continue to plague women.

Wish this idea could spread around the world.

Stretching the truth

The Gothamist spotted this huge bit of digital manipulation, which no doubt helped to fat shame women even more than it already does.

It shows Mad Men bombshell Christina Hendricks at Sunday's Golden Globes.

On the right, the original. On the left, as published.

Everybody knows Hendricks' globes and everything else about her are golden. She works them all as part of her role on the incredibly successful series about the ad bizz in the 1960s.

But in this big fat lie of a photo -- Gothamist has a screen grab of the original -- she's distorted, ostensibly to make the writer's point that Hendricks made a fashion faux pas:

... pretty Christina Hendricks in Christian Siriano’s exploding ruffle dress. (As one stylist said, 'You don’t put a big girl in a big dress.')"

Now, if this was performed by some celebrity trash tab or bitchy gossip site, it would be one thing. But no. It was in the New York Times.

All the news re-sized to print.

H/T Dammit Janet!

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: One of my Tweeps suggested this may have been the result of some clumsy page lay-out. Maybe. A very interesting one, no?

Digital scale

Via the New York Times' health blog:

What is the fastest way to lose weight? Try getting a cover shoot for a magazine.

The Web site Jezebel.com this week offers a “Photoshop of Horrors,” identifying the 15 most “egregious” examples of digital retouching of photographs on magazine covers. Not surprisingly, many of the photos involve making already slim women look even slimmer.

I've posted a few over the past couple of years, as you can see here.

But Jezebel has the whole hall of shame, at least those that were glaringly obvious.

The worst? Pop star Kelly Clarkson on the cover of the September issue of Self, which isn't even a fashion magazine really but more about health and fitness.

In explaining the obvious fakeover, Self's editor would later blog (I added the boldface):

Kelly has this amazing spirit, the kind of joie de vivre that certain people possess that makes you want to stand closer to them, hoping that you can learn what they know. In this case, you get the feeling Kelly has not let fame spoil her, but also that she was just born confident, with a generosity of spirit that is all about others and rarely about herself. She is, like her music, giving and strong and confident and full of gusto. Did we alter her appearance? Only to make her look her personal best. Did we publish an act of fiction? No. Not unless you think all photos are that. But in the sense that Kelly is the picture of confidence, and she truly is, then I think this photo is the truest we have ever put out there on the newsstand.

Right.

Can you see the cover line at the top right of the issue?

Stay true to you and everyone else will love you too.

Unh-hunh.

No wonder so many girls are so screwed up.

Hip Hip ... Hunh?

What's wrong with this picture?

Now it's not enough that Demi Moore hasn't had who knows how much cosmetic surgery, probably works her buns of steel off at the gym, eats nothing and is naturally gorgeous to begin with. Oh no. Not good enough. Not for the fashion world which is making women insane with self-hatred.

You'd think they'd be more skilled with the computer knife though, no?

Hotwire

Maybe if they wore fewer layers?

I guess they made this between jetting to their fashion shows and shoots all over the world.

I prefer this one.

Bet the superhotties will go viral first. It might take some people repeated views until they get the message.

The Skinny on Fashion

So you know all that stuff you've been hearing about how fat is where it's at, how some magazines are promoting healthier body images and how the end is nigh for the anorectic fashion role model?

Don't believe it.

Via Sociological Images, here's just one catwalk image from Paris Fashion Week earlier this month, in this case from the Lindsey Lohan-directed collection for Ungaro:

 
Turns out even Barbie's ankles are now too fat for fashion.

Glamour Shock

I happened across this nugget last week somewhere but, when I went to the newsroom to pick up my snail mail, once again my copy of Glamour had done AWOL.

Again.

Figures. It's a popular magazine. No wonder it has been my favourite lady mag since I was 12, although I confess to straying a few times. 

Anyway, I haven't been to a newsstand to actually buy another copy. Then just forgot.

Today my friend Cate Kustanczy tweeted me a reminder.

Look Ma! No six-pack! No stick legs!

The reaction has been amazing, and no wonder.

It's a photo that measures all of three by three inches in our September issue, but the letters about it started to flood my inbox literally the day Glamour hit newsstands. (As editor-in-chief, I pay attention to this stuff!) "I am gasping with delight...I love the woman on p 194!" said one...then another, and another, andanotherandanotherandanother. So...who is she? And what on earth is so special about her?

Here's the deal: The picture wasn't of a celebrity. It wasn't of a supermodel. It was of a woman sitting in her underwear with a smile on her face and a belly that looks...wait for it...normal.

What? No plastic fantastic photoshopping of horrors? (Check out the latest scandale in that department.) More. More. More.

Why she looks like the women I saw this afternoon in the gym -- and one of them was doing hand-stand push-ups.

Here's Jezebel on the matter of the matter:

As Leive says, we've gotten to the point where showing a woman with folds in her skin or a belly that sticks out (who isn't in a "before and after" feature) is a radical move for a women's magazine, even though that's what every woman actually sees in the mirror every day.

<SNIP>

Glamour has a better track record than other women's magazines when it comes to showing women of all shapes and sizes. As mentioned earlier, we liked that the magazine's May issue used a plus-size model in their swimsuit fashion spread but didn't mention her size or pat themselves on the back for featuring a "normal-sized" woman.

But still, being the ladymag with the most body diversity isn't that hard when your competition is Vogue.

One or two occasional soft-bodied models do not diversity make.

Incidentally, this fashion show in Australia is some kind of awesome!

Not the Hindu Kush

Uh ... I don't know how I lived this long without a Kush.

Now is it me or does it look like ... oh never mind...

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: It's how much???????

Kiss My Assets

With props to friend Marc Weisblott who tweeted this, gotta say I love this:  Kim Kardashian, one of those young beauties basically famous for being rich, beautiful and famous, elegantly snaps back at the critics of her ''cellulite.''

She is on the cover of Life & Style weekly, hands on hip, in a bikini, in an ''100% unretouched'' shot.

The cutline?

''I have cellulite, so what?''

After being called fat,  Kim declares, "This is the real me, I love my body. You should love yours, too.''

Unfortunately, the mag has disabled the right-click features so I can't pin the photo here. You'll have to click on the link above to see the pic.

But thanks to the magic of the Internet, unflattering photos of Kardashian are everywhere.

The thing is, the whole brouhaha started because, in another shoot, her photos were drastically retouched -- and the magazine published both the before and after. Which, I must say, was not a bad move (if you are being super generous, at least), because it shows women how celebrities get the benefit of lighting, photoshopping and airbrushing.

I like what she has done with the latest shoot though. So I'm posting a pretty picture of her.

Even if it's probably retouched.

That's no shrimp of a Barbie

Finally, Barbie does something useful.
 
What do you think?