Ralph Lauren faced a scandal when it printed a heavily photoshopped ad in which the model’s waist is inhumanely small. Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/bohemiancoast/3989301705/

Advertisements are meant to attract consumers. Unfortunately, reaching that goal sometimes means employing means that are less-than-ethical.

One example comes from the longstanding practice of using the ideal of female perfection as a marketing tool. At some point, in the arms race to fabricate the most “perfect” woman, technology has been recruited to take over where nature left off.

In today’s advertisements, the use of Photoshop has become standard practice—no matter how far from reality the products of this digital manipulation may be. Or, on that note, how much harm these unrealistic portrayals of women may cause to young girls already bombarded with ads and expectations about make-up, diets, and what they “should be.”

There have been attempts to curb the potentially dangerous effects of these retouched images. Valérie Boyer, a member of the French parliament, has proposed a law against digitally retouched photographs featuring models. She argues that in order to combat eating disorders and negative body images, advertisers should place a warning label onto retouched photographs. In a world where some people will do just about anything to be perfect, Boyer wants to bring light to the old ugly truth that the ideal is ultimately unattainable.

Jo Swinson, a British member of Parliament, also supports the idea of a warning label and has suggested a similar proposal be enacted in Britain. In an interview with the New York Times, she argues that the highly doctored images convince people, especially young women, “to believe in realities that very often do not exist.” With the rising popularity of pro-anorexia websites, some believe that these warning labels may help people with self-acceptance and help individuals understand that this airbrushed perfection does not exist no matter your size. Swinson’s law proposes that violators who do not use a warning label face fines of up to $55,000 or about 50% of the advertisement’s cost.

The last two decades have ushered in a generation of models that have progressively gotten thinner—sometimes past any sort of reasonable limit.

Robin Derrick, creator director of British Vogue, told the New York Times, “I spent the first ten years of my career making girls look thinner. I’ve spent the last ten making them look larger.” It’s difficult to change this dangerous mentality when there are major fashion industry figures that vocally support having very thin bodies. Karl Lagerfeld, head designer and creative director of Chanel, recently said, “No one wants to see curvy women.”

Last summer, I worked at New York Fashion Week, mostly to get a taste of a world I knew nothing about. When the first model sauntered down the runway next to me, I felt like an obese midget gorilla. Within five minutes, I was surrounded by twenty girls with legs that went on for miles and had pencil-thin bodies that I thought were supposed to be one-in-a-million. The countless models packed in Bryant Park were all the same—rail thin and with the clichéd cigarettes in their hands. But up close, I saw that their hollowed faces were quite different from the poreless images so realistically illustrated in magazines.

Models, too, were well versed in the languages of wrinkles, blemishes, back fat, cellulite, and other imperfections. Of course, they were far from what “normal” people look like, but they were still human. Admittedly, even after that experience, I still sometimes view advertisements and editorials with a naïve eye, thinking that what I’m seeing is real—but at least now I’m a little bit more aware of the reality hidden behind layers and hours of retouching. However, most of the rest of the world is not, which is why Boyer and Swinson believe this law should be enacted.

However, even if put into effect, such a law would still be limited in its ability to effect a change in public perception. Sticking a warning label next to a photo can clarify that the image is not natural, but its power remains. People may realize that images have been altered but fail to appreciate how distant this digital perfection is from reality—leading them to believe this airbrushed perfection is still somehow possible.

Tall and skinny models are the norm in fashion. Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/1460697324/.

Sephora now sells a real-life airbrushing tool called “Temptu,” marketed as “the brains behind most of the A-list work you see—the picture-perfect faces on the silver screen, the immaculate high-fashion shots.” Why airbrush? “You don’t have to be a model or celebrity to achieve that light-reflecting, flawless look you see on the big screen or in glossy magazines…see why this Airbrushing sensation is your Mr. Right…”

Why wouldn’t you want to look flawless and find the man (or woman) of your dreams? All for a couple hundred dollars! Many, including myself, have been lured at one time or another by the prospect of becoming the aesthetically perfect person, ignoring—or perhaps accepting—the notion that our true self just isn’t good enough.

As terrible as it may be to delude young minds of a seemingly attainable beauty, self-perception is an internal matter outside the controls of warning labels. The concept of beauty has always been idealized—from Raphael to today’s Photoshop—and many long for that elusive prize of aesthetic perfection.

V Magazine recently did a feature on a typical thin model and a “plus-sized” model wearing the same clothes in similar poses. For the most part, neither looked more remarkable than the other, but that was probably because those photos were visibly retouched to make both models look slim and flattering. Sure, the plus-sized model was a bit plumper but with the retouching, she didn’t look that much different from the thinner model.

In 2009, Ralph Lauren ran a campaign featuring a model whose body was clearly retouched—her waist was just about as wide as her head—and received scathing public criticism for the obvious distortion. They later apologized for the photograph but ended up firing the model, on the basis that she was unable to “meet the obligations under her contract with [Ralph Lauren].” The model, Filippa Hamilton, claims that she was fired because she was too fat for the company’s image.

It’s a bit disturbing when an obviously thin woman isn’t thin enough to meet a major label’s standards. The unsurprising result of this industry pressure is that models, already supernaturally slender, must try even harder to lose weight in order to match some sort of fantasy ideal.

Warning labels may bring light to the problem of anorexia and poor self-image, but ultimately it’s an issue that lies with society’s willingness, or unwillingness, to accept what is natural as what is beautiful—or at least decent. Although it would be interesting to see what kind of effects these labels have on consumers, it seems that these labels would be mere band-aids to a bigger problem that is far more difficult to solve.

After all, what good are labels when it is society itself that demand a standard of perfection that is beyond what can be real? Labels can only tell young girls that the images aren’t real. It doesn’t stop them from seeing the images as what they should become.