Yes! Another brand goes Photoshop-free with a new, rad campaign
You know us, we love when brands swear off Photoshop, because we are all about being sold clothes and accessories and makeup and whatever by models who look on the page just how they look IRL. We gave big props to Modcloth and Aerie when those brands said goodbye to Photoshop, and now it’s time to share those ups with the Italian footwear brand Woz, who has joined the Photoshop-free jamboree.
As Styleite reports, Woz Shoes, in addition to nixing digital retouching, is now captioning many of its Instagrams with the simple and brilliant catch phrase, “Normal is special” to highlight the Photoshop-free nature of the images. We completely agree, and we love the body positive message Woz is sending with their new ads. These women are gorgeous, naturally gorgeous, and no one needs to pull up retouching software and distort their bodies into some computerized ideal. Bodies in real life are normal, and as Woz makes the awesome point of emphasizing, normal IS special. We’re digging these unretouched shots as much as we’re loving these shiny, sparkly, cool as heck kicks.
In order to understand how important it is when companies swear off retouching pictures, it’s crucial to understand just how dangerous Photoshop can be. As we’ve reported in the past, the stats about young women and body image are straight-up terrifying. 42% of girls in grades 1-3 want to be thinner. 78% of 17-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies. 30% of high-school girls and 16% of high-school boys have an eating disorder. And as we’ve cited in the past, teenage girls are reportedly “more afraid of gaining weight than getting cancer, losing their parents, or nuclear war.” These numbers are TERRIFYING. One of the reasons these stats are so bad is because we live in a world in which we see altered images all the time. We’re seeing distorted bodies left and right and it’s hard not to internalize them and believe that someone who has been hacked away at by software is what we’re supposed to look like. And believing these unrealistic standards helps contribute to these depressing figures in a big, ugly way.
Which is why we so love brands that are making it their mission to promote body positivity with real bodies. Way to go Woz Shoes, we love your shoes and we love the way you advertise them to the world. Our fingers are tightly crossed that we see ALL the brands follow your visionary lead.
Rad: Modcloth officially first retailer to stop airbrushing models
Aerie stops Photoshopping its ads and everyone wins
[Images via Instagram]