Isn't that what all advertising is though? Telling you that something is wrong with you and your lifestyle and you need a certain product or service to fix it? Like Shana, I look at the clothes, not the model. No model is ever going to look exactly like me anyway, and I'm fine with that. I just sincerely don't see catalog models as being representative of physical attractiveness. I see them as human coathangers (that sounds mean, but you know what I mean). No matter who the model is or what size she is, I still have to try on the outfit anyway to find out if it works.
As soon as bigger models take center stage, you would have to prepare for an influx of resentment and protests from The National Association for Thin Advocacy and and Skinny Rights International. That is what happens. As soon as people get left out, they band together and get upset. The modeling world is never going to please everyone.
Airbrushing has definitely gotten out of hand, I'll give you that. For one of my technical classes in Photoshop, my instructor showed us an ad he worked on where he actually had to add wrinkles back to the model's face because she had been airbrushed so much that she didn't even have laugh lines anymore (not the really deep set ones, but the kind that anyone, young or old will have). I choose to be amused over this than offended Most of those people look so ridiculous that I hardly find it attractive or desirable. I don't want to look like plastic! And since I hardly wear makeup, I do practice what I preach
I don't actually read any magazines myself, other than the New Yorker and some design-y magazines (but they are usually too expensive for me to justify buying). So maybe I have just been spared of this anguish. Who knows. I was thinking, while watching Project Runway last week, that even though several of the models are really stunning, a lot of them look very ordinary. I'd rather look like me.
