Morning:
14°c
Victoria Beckham’s Armani ad won’t help make laws to stop the camera lying
Laura Craik, Fashion Editor06.08.09
Did you see Victoria Beckham in the new Armani ad? Guess what: she doesn't really look like that.
In real life, her hair isn't that long, her thighs aren't that slim and her cheekbones aren't that pronounced. I know! What a con! Someone should slap a government health warning on her!
If Jo Swinson has her way, they will. Well, it is August, after all. If April is the cruellest month, then August is the one where female politicians go all-out to harness the good opinion of the female voter by whichever desperate means they can (hello, Harriet).
Perhaps it is a particular edict of the Liberal Democrat Party that this means having a go at the fashion industry, since it was only a year ago that another female Lib-Dem, London Assembly member Dee Doocey, argued that London Fashion Week should have its government support withdrawn for failing to ban size-zero models.
The camera has always lied. In the 1930s, Stalin had Trotsky removed from revolutionary-era photographs of him with Lenin. In 1982, National Geographic magazine was criticised for altering a photograph of two Egyptian pyramids, moving them closer together so that they would fit better on its cover. That prawn rogan josh picture on the front of your ready meal? It doesn't really look like that. Nor does the movie star on that poster on the side of the 73 bus.
When it comes to the moral implications of digital enhancement, though, as always it's the fashion industry that really gets it in the neck. By presenting such unattainable images of perfection, it is argued, the fashion industry is driving thousands of women to develop eating disorders and low self-esteem.
While I have never, even as a naive teenager, felt fat, ugly or hopeless just by looking at a fashion mag, I'm happy to concede that other women might.
For those prone to self-loathing in the first place, perhaps the sight of perfect, shiny little Cheryl Cole on the cover of Vogue might tip them over the edge. So I don't actually object in principle to Swinson's idea of adding a disclaimer to fashion images where alterations have been made. Cream-cake packaging bears the legend “not actual size”, so why not an Armani ad featuring Victoria Beckham?
But here's my problem with Swinson's idea. It will never happen, and she knows it. If she doesn't know it, then she is even dumber than Dee Doocey. How would it be effected? The fashion industry is self-governed: as the army of misinformed meddlers who tried to ban size-zero models knows, you can't make it do anything it doesn't want to do. Does Swinson propose that the Government steps in? Good luck with that.
What does she think it will do? The Government can't even control its own banks — it doesn't have a hope in hell of controlling the fashion industry. Politicians should stop promoting themselves on the back of lost causes and start focusing on the job in hand.
This country is in a mess and I can't be the only one thinking their priorities are a lot more distorted than Victoria Beckham's thighs.
I'm stuck in Stone Age hell
When you are burgled on holiday, as I was, you need receipts for everything bar the air you breathe in order to claim insurance. After booking my Thomson holiday online, I thought it would be pretty simple to obtain the evidence: a matter of typing in the reference number and printing out the details.
Hah! Thomson might have a website but it retains no record of any bookings that the customer can access: it is as though the whole transaction never occurred. After 20 minutes on hold to a woman in customer support, I was told I had to request my receipt in writing.
After I observed that this was all a bit Stone Age (I mean, why not send a pigeon?), she grudgingly parted with an email address I could write to instead. Six weeks on, I am still waiting for a reply. The news that Thomson is to cut 2,600 jobs over the next two years is hardly surprising: I'm amazed they have any customers left.
Much harrumphing at Harriet Harman
Whatever else Harriet Harman has achieved this week (and it's only Thursday, so who knows what heights of wisdom she might scale by pub closing time tomorrow), she has certainly managed to flush out not only the woman-haters but also the failings of men.
If Harman expected support from her party, she might want to avoid reading labourlist.org, some of whose male members are so sexist they make Silvio Berlusconi look like Germaine Greer.
Hilariously, when they feel they are losing their argument, they start boasting about what degree they got at university (“I've got an Oxbridge D.Phil”).
A common complaint against men in charge is that they let their egos obstruct their judgment; amusing to see, then, that in trying to refute Harman's arguments, many male commentators prove why she made them in the first place.
Searching for the best ice cream
August in London with children means only one thing: ice cream. All you need to know about parenthood (but which nobody ever tells you) is this: ice cream gives more delight than any toy, day trip or expensive holiday abroad.
This weekend, I'll be continuing my quest to find the Best Ice Cream in London. So far, it's a toss-up between Scoop in Covent Garden and Marine Ices in Chalk Farm. Scoop has a wider range of flavours (the dulce de latte is divine) but Marine Ices probably pips it to the post on account of its delicious Strawberry. At £1.90 for a cone, it makes for a far cheaper ray of sunshine than a fortnight in Mallorca.
Reader views (2)
It`s about time a few rules were dictated concerning any model used in advertising.
For example;
All must be AVERAGE weight for their HEIGHT (-0 percent, plus 5 percent)
Images that have been digitally airbrushed MUST state so, and list the changes made.
Just these two rules ,if enforced should drag (?) females back to reality of what a REAL person looks like, as opposed to the extremely disturbing view that fashion designers are peddling of "perfection" (i.e their designs only look acceptably "good" on tall skinny coat hanger models) .
We go on about healthy lifestyles - well, for the physical AND mental wellbeing of our young and easily led fashion addicts, this misinterpretation of perfection has to be stopped.
- Darius, London UK
I feel sorry for the younger generation whose vision of beauty has become anomalous to say the least. I am from the natural school of Nigela Lawson. This vogue for rakes with plastic racks created by gay designers may sell cloths but in realism is anything but feminine or anything to aspire towards unless we want everyone looking like little boys, like most things in life has gone way too far and will return to natural curves in the very near future
- Gary, Brentwood
