Judging from the clavicle action on the runways this past Fashion Week, the British Fashion Council’s Model Health Inquiry hasn’t had a major effect on catwalks, but the council is pushing for change in editorial departments. The BFC wants magazines to state which images have been “airbrushed” since such images perpetuate an “unachievable aesthetic.” Obviously, this could be huge. WWD reports:
The U.K.’s Periodical Publishers Association said Tuesday it will set up a working group with the BFC and London magazine editors to discuss the use of digital enhancements in fashion photography. “…In December, the BFC said it wrote to the PPA, the British Society of Magazine Editors and the Advertising Association in the U.K. to suggest what the BFC calls “a voluntary code covering the use of digital manipulation [in photography].” A BFC spokeswoman said Tuesday that no guidelines had been drawn up governing the magazines’ use of airbrushing. She suggested that rather than limiting magazines’ use of digital manipulation, publications could instead be asked to declare if an image had been altered.
If magazines follow this voluntary code, every picture would bear an “airbrushed” stamp because every picture is digitally enhanced in magazines. Should this catch on, more power to them. But it’s been, what, five years since Kate Winslet spoke out about having her image altered on the cover of GQ? Otherwise, the official stance is radio silence (save for those nasty leaks to confirm what we already know). So without celebrity blessings, there’ll be no real rush to “declare” all those altered images — at least not until Eva Longoria tells the Photoshop monkey in the art department that it’s cool to speak out about her armpit flab.
