Model and activist Ashley Graham believes in the power of depicting women as they are, not perfectly doctored images. But anyone with a smartphone can access a host of apps capable of reshaping a jaw, changing skin tone or lengthening eyelashes. Doctoring photos of women has been common practice in fashion magazines for years. Graham sees this as a problem.
“If you are constantly showing an altered woman in media,” said the IMG model in a recent interview according to The New York Times, “what is that little girl going to go and do when she looks in the mirror and doesn’t see smoothed-out skin, or almond eyes, or a pinched nose and plumped-up lips?”
Graham’s concern over how unrealistic beauty standards affect young women is why she published unaltered paparazzi photos of herself rom her latest swimsuit campaign. It is also why she asks for consent and some control over any changes made to her image. That concern is one of the many reasons she became one of the first “curvy” models in fashion (anyone over a size 12).
This concern is also why The Times used 100 cameras to record Graham’s runway walk in 3-D holographic motion, with no alterations to her form.
Before Fashion Week, the model and activist @ashleygraham spoke with us about the power of depicting female bodies as they really are — without doctoring their form https://t.co/OwLCJ6XbZ0 pic.twitter.com/p9ubGH7XLC
— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 5, 2018
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