The retouching issue: going au natural

When J. LaMore received its May copy of Marie Claire magazine, the cover pictured a natural-looking Jessica Simpson with the caption, “The Real Jessica: no makeup, no retouching, no regrets” splayed across the front. This revolt against retouching is just the most recent of a handful of publications and celebrities who are embracing The Real Thing: last year French Elle featured a slew of actresses sans makeup (including on the cover), Britney Spears recently convinced Candie’s to release the unretouched pictures of her campaign for the brand along with the retouched (you can get a peek here), and Kim Kardashian and Joy Bryant posed nude AND unretouched for the May issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

After all the debates about too-skinny models, unrealistic beauty standards and people like Heidi Montag getting horrific amounts of plastic surgery done in the name of perfection, this new trend towards the natural comes as quite the sigh of relief. And the fact that the fashion industry is beginning to realize the standards of perfection they pose on not only regular women, but models and celebrities too, are unhealthy and often unattainable for anyone seems like a step in the right direction towards promoting healthy self-images in women.

The reality of retouching and airbrushing being banished completely, however, is highly improbable. Just a page before Simpson’s no-makeup no-retouch spread is an ad for her shoe and clothing line where she stands, slim, statuesque and glowing with none of the visible beauty marks or lines that appear on her face on the cover. But I don’t think retouching should be entirely eliminated, of course there will be the occasional stray pimple that will not suffice in a beauty ad, but cutting down body parts or making faces glow with a plastic-y sheen isn’t really what consumers want to see anymore. We’ve wised up. We know what’s fake and what’s not and it’s about time publications, advertisers, celebrities and the like acknowledged that no one is perfect. And that’s okay.

See more on this issue.

Mandy
Creative Director