I recently wrote a post called “What is a Real Woman?"
I feel obliged to mention it again as I have just seen the new Very campaign with Holly Willoughby. Now I love Holly and I love the clothes that she is associated with on Very. But this ad campaign leaves a sour taste in my mouth I’m afraid.
A competition has been launched to find “real women” to walk the catwalk and model her collection. She has been quoted in their blog saying:
“I want to show the clothes as they should be seen, on real women with real figures walking down the catwalk. This is when the clothes will look their best.”
What does that even mean? Holly, Holly, we are all real women, whatever our size. A woman is just as real at size 6 as she is at size 30.
We all have a body. We all wear clothes. We all wear our clothes in different ways, with different attitudes and with varying amounts of confidence. A dress can look fabulous on a woman of any size.
Design a collection for specific sizes if you want Holly, but don’t say that it is for real women. Size 6 or size 30, every woman is real and has a right to dress, feel and be how she wants.
I understand why people are getting cross with the term "real women", but I think people are taking it too literally. It isn't meant to imply that models or skinny women aren't "real", I think it refers to the fact that the images of people we see in the media aren't real due to the photoshopping / airbrushing of the images. Even models do not look the same in the flesh as they do in the pictures, and by referring to "real women" the implication is on what we are really, not some impossible ideal of perfection that the media want us to see
ReplyDelete