Aerie Gets Real

Aerie Gets Real

Through many decades the societal ideal of the women’s bodies have changed in many ways, and it seems to keep changing right before our eyes everyday. Today in society we think of the “ideal body image” women may say their dream look or body image would be the flawlessly beautiful Victoria Secret models like Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner that look perfect in their advertisements, social media and runway shows. In reality those women, who yes are gorgeous, but they themselves don’t necessarily look exactly like their pictures in real life, giving everyday women the false idea of body images that they may want to strive for. Photoshop has changed our perspective of what we dream of looking like, even though it is not how the models look themselves. In 2014 The #AerieReal campaign came about and it could possibly change the body ideal image for women. Their models have various body shapes and they also do not retouch their pictures for advertisements, making women of various body types feeling comfortable in their own skin.

Aerie, the sister store of American Eagle that sells lingerie and sleep wear, they are certainly setting themselves apart from competitors like Victoria’s Secret and their sister store PINK. The #AerieReal campaign that features more relatable, realistic, non-retouched models of various body types and sizes, compared to the “perfectly” thin Victoria Secret models. This campaign is heading in the direction of empowering women of all shapes and sizes that would possibly change the body image ideals for women today.

This campaign is empowering girls to feel better and have better confidence about themselves and their bodies. Iskra Lawrence and Barbie Ferreira are both plus size models of Aerie and they are delivering powerful messages. In these YouTube videos they briefly talk about what the Aerie campaign means to them and how they feel about the way women’s bodies are viewed and how this campaign can help other girls out their who are struggling with their bodies and give them girls who are like them to look up too.

In Barbie’s video she says how…

“Knowing that’s what I look like without anyone’s perception of what my body needs to look like. The world needs more women who are so strong, especially a lot of friends that I have.”

Barbie’s message for being an Aerie model is showing girls that you should be confident and love your body no matter how other people view you or about how you might feel about your own body. The “real you is sexy”, and that everyone should embrace their “flaws” and insecurities, because who doesn’t have them. (People)

Like Barbie’s video, Iskra Lawrence gets emotional saying that time and time again she was told she “Wasn’t good enough” because of her curvy body type, but Aerie came along and told her that she was beautiful because she was herself, and that there is no reason to retouch pictures because again one of their main slogans is “the real you is sexy.” She says that there is no reason to not be confident, if you feel good wearing clothes, be confident in yourself, do not let anyone tell you how you should be feeling about yourself, because “the real you is beautiful”. (Time Magazine)

            Society today can be harsh when it comes to body types and how people see other peoples’ bodies. In Susan Bordo’s article “Reading the Slender Body” she talks about Slenderness and Contemporary Anxiety where a magazine ran a study where people showed a picture of a thin super model with altered wide hips to a group of young boys who said the model with wide hips was considered “fat”, just because of the altered hips. (Bordo331) This shows that our culture can mold our way of thinking of what is considered the ideal body type for women. If Aerie can change the mindset of the ideal body type for women, it could benefit our society in many ways, women will feel more confident with themselves and their mental thinking. Women should not let the thought of what men think about their bodies affect their confidence, because what women body image ideals are based off what men are seeing in the media. In the early 2000’s photoshopped, super skinny body type was the ideal look, morphing the body ideals then. The #AerieReal campaign can now make it so there is no ideal body shape that women should feel like they should look like, they should feel confident with what their body is weather they are a size 14 or a size 4, your body is beautiful and being yourself and being confident is sexy, and we should let other people tell us how we should look or how we should feel about yourselves.

Works Cited

Bordo, Susan. Reading the Slender Body. N.p.: n.p., 1990. Print.

"Intimates Line Aerie Gets Real, Unveils 'aerie Real' Spring 2014 Campaign Featuring Unretouched Models, Challenging Supermodel Standards." PR NewsWire. N.p., 17 Jan. 2016. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.

Kratofil, Colleen. "Aerie Taps First Curvy Model, Barbie Ferreira, for New Unretouched Swimwear Ads." People. N.p., 25 Jan. 2016. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.

McCluskey, Megan. "Size 14 Model Iskra Lawrence Is the Newest Face of Aerie’s Unretouched Campaign." Time. N.p., 10 Feb. 2016. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.