Joan of Photoshop: The Fallout from Julia Bluhm’s Crusade

A few months ago Julia Bluhm started a petition that wanted Seventeen Magazine to reduce the use of Photoshop and publish at least one unaltered photo spread per monthly issue.
Seventeen wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about that idea, even after talking to Julia. It seems however that they finally found a way to respond to the problem and the 85,000 signatures: The Body Peace Project. Seventeen vows in their August issue to never change (and never have changed) girls’ body or face shapes, only feature healthy girls and models, and to “celebrate every kind of beauty.” All their efforts to show “real” will be documented with behind the scenes photos and videos. Furthermore, Seventeen Magazine partners with The National Eating Disorder Association and the Commission for Positive Images of Women and Girls.
Even though this might sound like a groundbreaking decision, the magazine will still use Photoshop to make (minor) corrections, such as covering blemishes or acne, whiten teeth and remove visible bra straps or stray hair – just nothing that will alter the models’ bodies. Chances are high that the models will probably still look better than many of us on our best days.
Since Seventeen says it has never changed the shape of their models’ bodies or faces, it will be interesting to see how the magazine’s content will be different after the August issue.
It’s definitely a great way to raise awareness and hopefully many other publications will follow with similar ideas.
The most important lesson that we have to keep in the backs of our naturally beautiful heads with stray hairs and blemishes is that nowadays, nothing is what it seems. Especially not in shiny fashion magazines. [Editor's note: our hearts go to the team at Seventeen, who last night lost one of their founding members, Estelle Ellis Rubinstein. Read all about her amazing life here]

Do You Have What it Takes to Become Britain’s Next Top Boardmember? You might.

Let’s send a transatlantic high five to British companies!

We all know that companies who have women on their boards are more successful and many European countries are trying to close the gender gap in business leadership by introducing voluntary quotas. Great Britain’s FTSE 100 companies want to have at least 25% female members on their boards by 2015. According to a report published last week, that number is slowly rising and one in four FTSE 100 companies have achieved that goal already. Of course there is still a lot of room for improvement, especially outside the boardrooms and in executive leadership positions.

Maybe boardrooms, executive positions and fashion photos have more in common than we think? People will be happy and quiet when you make little changes here and there but postpone a real commitment to way way later, once someone brings up the issue again.

Anyone want to design a Higgs boson bikini?

Since we’re in the middle of a heat wave and the discovery of the Higgs boson is groundbreaking but does not really have an impact on women directly (trust me, I have looked in all dimensions), let’s just grab a cool beverage and say Happy 66th Birthday, bikini! In case you not only want to impress with your library of beach photos and your summer tan but some extra knowledge: The bikini was invented by a French automobile engineer named Louis Rard and got its name from an Atoll in the South Pacific that got questionable fame after the US detonated an atomic bomb there in 1946. According to Rard, a bikini is only a bikini when both pieces could be pulled through a wedding ring!

Happy Summer!