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Okay, seriously what is with the obsession with "thin?"

Travis said:
Take a look at this latest example of photoshopping via Ann Taylor and explain to me why this was necessary. Seriously, why? She already looked perfectly fine. The picture was already perfectly fine.

Was it just to dewrinkle the outfit and they got carried away? Did they have an art staff that needed "busy work?" Is there really a secret conspiracy to get women obsessed with looking unnaturally skinny?

I mean I can't figure it out. And of course we have those other recent headline grabbing incidents just like this making me wonder if the advertising agencies for these companies are run by some weirdo with an anorexic fetish.
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I never understood this either.
The film "THe Devil Wears Prada" takes some nice potshots at the obessesion with thinness.
 
i find these women, who look like Auschwitz survivors, to be highly unattractive.

I saw them doing a photo shoot in the Lower East Side two months ago. the fashion folks were good looking, with healthy looking bodies.

the models, however, looked like god-damn aliens.
 
Of course, by "plus size", they mean women who would wear a 10 or a 12-sized dress.... a size that would have been considered "average" maybe 40 years ago.
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...and, in fact, looked very good on Marilyn Monroe.

(I remember once looking for a denim skirt for an event I had to attend. In desperation I called the "large ladies'" shop in the small town where I lived. They had the skirt, but when they asked what I size I needed and I said 14, the owner replied, "Oh, no, we don't carry those little sizes." I almost went over and bought something from her out of sheer gratitude. :D)
 
I know the claim of "it sells more clothing" is constantly used, but is that actually true? Are there any studies that show that clothing advertised by way too skinny models photoshopped to be inhumanly skinny sells more clothing? Most of the women I know who enjoy shopping tend to try on most clothing before buying it, so as to find the clothing that makes them look best rather than just buy what looks best when not hanging on a person.

If the purpose is to remove wrinkles and shadows or any other effects that detract from the clothing, would it be better to just dispense with models all together and just display them on hangers? I have a friend who buys clothing online from Fossil, so trying on the clothing before hand is not possible. I took a quick look and wrinkles do not seem to be a concern at all. Nearly everything has quite visible wrinkles. So it appears there is at least a segment of clothing advertisers that disagree with the wrinkle assessment.
 
This is the same as the explanation for why news outlets do the things they do - and has already been said generally. The people doing it do it because the sellers belive they will sell more clothes if the clothes are/appear to be unwrinkled. Everything else (anatomy errors, appearance of bodily distortion, etc.) are of no consequence. Only factors that will produce/increase sales matter. If making the models look thinner was causing sales to drop, I guarantee they would not do it.
 
Elizabeth I said:
...and, in fact, looked very good on Marilyn Monroe.
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This is a common belief, but an untrue one. At her heaviest (and during a time when she was considered to be letting herself get "plump") Marilyn Monroe was a size 10. And a size 10 in her day was smaller than a size 10 is now.


http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/mmdress.asp


Also, the desirability of women with small waists is not a new one. Anyone who has read the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which have as their focus her life in the 1800s, knows that her father would often boast that her mother, when they married, had a waist small enough to put his hands around.

It's silly to act as though this is some phenomenon inherent to america's top model or the magazines of today. Take a look at some of the ancient hindu statues for other examples of buxom women with etremely small waists and lithe bodies. It is a body type that has long been considered desirable.
 
Doghouse Reilly said:
This is a common belief, but an untrue one. At her heaviest (and during a time when she was considered to be letting herself get "plump") Marilyn Monroe was a size 10. And a size 10 in her day was smaller than a size 10 is now.


http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/mmdress.asp
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Sure, but the overall point still stands. Marilyn Monroe was incredibly attractive without having to shrink herself down to a size 0-2, which is pretty much the standard currently (according to a model I know, for mainstream clothes modeling/high fashion, not necessarily more artsy endeavors), only to have herself airbrushed down even thinner. Even accounting for the differences in sizing between then and now, MM wasn't thinner than a size 6 (your own link speculates a size 8, btw).
 
Doghouse Reilly said:
It's silly to act as though this is some phenomenon inherent to america's top model or the magazines of today. Take a look at some of the ancient hindu statues for other examples of buxom women with etremely small waists and lithe bodies. It is a body type that has long been considered desirable.
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Possibly in India, but not in Classical Greece. Or Rome.
 
Nobody answered whether there is any evidence death-camp models actually sell more clothes? Or is it just something fashion designers "know" to be true?
 
You know, is it just me, or invariably the "shopped" image has more male proportions. The broad shoulders and narrow hips are a masculine shape. (We guys don't have to be wide enough to pop out a baby down there.)

Reminds me of one of Bill Maher's "New Rules." Quoted very loosely from memory: straight men will stop telling gay men who they can marry, if gay men stop telling straight women how to dress.

I mean, seriously, each time I see one of these monstrosities, it boils down to bringing a girl to the proportions of a tall boy. Now normally I'd be against discrimination based on sexual preferences, as for 99.9% of the jobs it's irrelevant. But in this case I'd make an exception. A job boiling down to photoshopping a woman to be sexier should be done by someone whose idea of "sexy" doesn't involve turning her into a male.
 
The Fallen Serpent said:
I know the claim of "it sells more clothing" is constantly used, but is that actually true?
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Well it is true that people buy more things when the things are advertised by attractive people. Whether it still works when the models are so emaciated and skeletonish that they look like they may be in need of medical intervention I don't know.

Incidentally, its not just women that have this issue. Guys get the same treatment.
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
Well it is true that people buy more things when the things are advertised by attractive people. Whether it still works when the models are so emaciated and skeletonish that they look like they may be in need of medical intervention I don't know.
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Which is my point. "Attractive" they are not.

Not to most viewers, anyway.
 
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