Why So Skinny?

I looked at the photoshopped images by Ralph Lauren, and I couldn't help but laugh. It's unbelievable that someone would have such a distorted image of what's beautiful that they would think this image looks good.

I've had many encounters with the wonders of photoshop, and while some of them were breathtaking works of art, others were similar to the above example - waaay over the line.

If you look closely, you can tell his hips and legs are completely out of proportion from the rest of his body. It looks so wrong.


And this one... well, at least her features seem to be in better proportion. But it still bothers me because there's hardly a resemblance between the pictures. If I saw the second picture, I wouldn't even guess it was Kelly Clarkson, because I'm so used to seeing her how she is in the first. I don't see why they had to make such a dramatic change to her face; there wasn't a need for it. She's adorable even without the photoshop.

Seeing companies come up with badly manipulated pictures doesn't surprise me, because I've seen enough of the media to know that any professionally-printed picture of a celebrity or a model is often never without make up or editing.

Of course, there are exceptions, such as the "true beauty" trend. This trend is a relief from the countless photoshopped images we are exposed to, because these models (whose pictures, in my opinion, are much prettier than many other photoshopped ones) show us that beauty doesn't have to be faked with excessive photoshop. Along with "plus-sized" models, I believe this trend will definitely stick. Many people would feel a personal connection to these models. They are average people like everyone else who don't bother with makeup and editing, and instead are proud of their natural physical traits, like we all should be.