Real beauty doesn’t need to be retouched

Maria Malone, The Conversation

The giant global photographic agency, Getty Images, has announced it plans to ban retouching of images of models “to make them look thinner or larger”. The move follows a change to the law in France that requires images where the “body of the model has been modified … to either slim or flesh out her figure” to be accompanied by a “photographie retouchée” label.

These are groundbreaking developments which could be incredibly important, not just for the fashion industry, but for generations to come who may no longer grow up with unrealistic expectations of how their bodies should look, based on images of size zero models in glossy magazines.

The retouching of photos has been happening for many years – in the early sixties, one of my mother’s duties at a photographic studio was to add rosy tints to the cheeks of brides and babies. In the golden age of the Hollywood starlet, photographers peered through a “misty” filter that gave a softly perfect complexion. Body shapes have come in and out of fashion, from the curvaceous figures in Rubens’ famous paintings of the 1600s to the straight up-and-down flat-chested flappers of the 1920. The enhancement of the face with make-up dates back to the Egyptians.

But digital technology has made all of this so much easier and we are now bombarded on social media with images of celebrities with flawless skin and lean, toned limbs. People achieve celebrity these days with no talent other than the fact that they can look good in a photograph. Meanwhile young girls are increasingly obsessed with photographing themselves in their latest outfits and professionally applied makeup in the pursuit of the same look. Apps further enhancing these photos are now the norm. More and more girls are rejecting the traditional gift of jewellery for an 18th birthday, in favour of cosmetic surgery. There are regular stories of trolling and bullying, and girls – and increasingly boys – feel pressured to lose weight and look perfect. Tragically, this pressure is too much for some to bear.