H&M Using Fake Models
Some pretty crazy news surfaced last week about H&M's policy of using the same digitally altered model's body over and over. Apparently, H&M has been just changing the head of the model and altering the color of the digitally rendered body to make a composite person to model clothes. Those models?
Fake.
You can tell if you're looking closely at the picture: the body is impossibly proportioned, strangely glowing, and perfectly angular. The heads look a little weird and not quite right.
Are you as disgusted by all of this as I am? I'm wondering if a serious discussion with our children about the issue of out-of-control photo retouching and unattainable beauty standards will now have to be part of modern parenting. I feel like I have a responsibility to show my kids before and after photographs so that they understand that these images are not real, they are cartoons.
How can I raise a daughter to value herself when she's confronted with these images (even if they are fake models, the human eye has a hard time of explaining to the brain that it's not real)?
How do I raise my sons to understand that real women are imperfect when they're being programmed to expect unrealistic standards of beauty? If all your sons see are sprayed and airbrushed images, will it ultimately mean real women will be found lacking?
I'm deeply uncomfortable with these fake digital bodies. And you?
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