Blue Centerlight Pop

The blog Boing-Boing and Ralph Lauren have gotten into an cyber-dispute that started when Boing-Boing had This picture of a Ralph Lauren Ad on their blog, and criticized it by saying Dude, her head is bigger than her pelvis, and said they got the picture from a blog called Photoshop disasters.

Ralph Lauren asked for the blog to take the ad down, claiming copyright infringement, but to its credit, Boing-Boing defended itself, saying that their use of the ad is “classic fair use: a reproduction ‘for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting.’”

I’m not a fan of the ad. The clothes displayed aren’t my personal aesthetic, but when I first looked at the ad, I didn’t even see the clothes, all I could notice was just how skinny the model was. Some people are naturally thin, but she just looks so unhealthy, and the inner mother in me just wants to feed her. Advertising-wise, this is probably not the message RL wanted to send out. I just hope young girls who see this ad don’t try to force themselves to look like this, because not even models look like models in ads without good lighting, good photography, and photoshop. Here is the same model in another Ralph Lauren ad.. She is still thin, but she does not look like she is going to keel over anytime soon.

Also, at the beginning of this week, Germany’s most popular fashion magazine, Brigitte announced that it would no longer be putting models in the pages of its magazine. Here is a cover and page from Brigitte:

Editor-in-Chief Andreas Lebert told the AP that the move is a response to readers increasingly saying that they are tired of seeing “protruding bones” from models who weigh far less than the average woman.

“We will show women who have an identity – the 18-year-old student, the head of the board, the musician, the football player,” Lebert said.

Hmm. This sounds a little familiar. My mind went to this movie:

Jennifer Garner’s character rebels against heroin-chic and has a similar idea.

I enjoy following fashion, and have models that are “my favorite”, but I think this move by Brigitte is interesting. I see a lot of beautiful people at my college campus every day that aren’t models, but look great in the outfits they’ve picked out for themselves. Straight-Sized model proportions are 5’9″ to 5’11″ for height and 108-130ish pounds for weight. Most women are not in this category, and many fashion models are very young, some as young as 14 or 15. They are still girls, modeling clothes that will mainly be bought for grown women.

I don’t think the modeling industry has any reason to worry about being put out of business because of this move by Brigitte. I love fashion, but sometimes wish things weren’t photoshopped to death. I try to eat healthy and work out, and I’m a grown-up and know this is fantasy and that models themselves don’t always look like their ads, but sometimes I compare myself to these ads, and it’s a competition that I am never going to win.

What do you think about this move by Germany’s leading fashion magazine?

In honor of the move by Brigitte, next week I am going to make a fashion post based on Blue Centerlight Pop’s readers! Send me an e-mail at thebluecenterlightpop@gmail.com with a picture of yourself in your favorite outfit. Tell us your first name, age, and the city in which you live. You can also leave a comment here with that info and a link to the picture. The top fifteen stylin’ readers will be featured in a post here and one grand prize winner will get a bottle of fall’s new trend, a bottle of OPI’s hey lime nail polish.

Send us your (safe for work!) fashion photos of your stylin’ self by midnight, Eastern time on October 11th! to thebluecenterlightpop@gmail.cm

<3

Sarah

Currently listing to "Pioneers"-Bloc Party