Clothier Slammed For Using 'Perfect' Virtual Model 471
Hugh Pickens writes "Swedish Clothing Giant H&M recently disclosed that the images from the company's website, showing models wearing the latest swimsuit and lingerie in generic, stock-form, are not just photoshopped but entirely computer-generated. 'We take pictures of the clothes on a doll that stands in the shop, and then create the human appearance with a program on [a] computer,' H&M press officer Hacan Andersson said when questioned about the company's picture-perfect online models. Advertising watchdogs elevated the controversy by criticizing the chain of lower-cost clothing stores for their generic approach to models, accusing the chain of creating unrealistic physical ideals. 'This illustrates very well the sky-high aesthetic demands placed on the female body,' says a spokesman for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, one of the groups most critical of H&M. 'The demands are so great that H&M, among the poor photo models, cannot find someone with both body and face that can sell their bikinis.'"
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
They're missing a trick here... (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess it's quite telling of my geekiness that my first thought on this isn't anything to do with stereotypes or the tragedy of young women being given unrealistic aspirations, but rather how the technology could be improved upon and put to better use.
I mean, they have the tech to computer generate a human form over the top of a mannequin wearing clothes right? So why not parameterize it so that people can customize the look to be them, like an avatar in $your-favourite-mmorpg-here?
Sure it'd take some work to adapt the tech and build some generative models, but suddenly you go from evil marketing tool to handy way to pick out a wardrobe and see what looks good on you.
Switchboard operators and models are replaced. (Score:5, Interesting)
The complaint appears to be based on the lower cost model of efficiency. The printing press operators, typesetters, telephone operators, and other high cost labor is being replaced by lower cost computer automation that is less prone to errors, never goes on strike, etc.
We reap the benefits of lower cost products, but moan the loss of jobs at the same time. Really, do you want to go back to the model of hand planted wheat and hand harvested and threshed wheat? If your daily loaf of bread cost leass than 1/3 of your income, you are benefiting from the economics of mechanized farming.
Paying a labor pool of nice looking models is a high expense of a limited resource and will no longer be sustainable as the number of clothing articles to be modeled rises with the new efficiency.
Automated phone systems enabled inexpensive phone calling. Do you really think your phone service would be anything like it is today if we all had to depend on the volume of Lilly Tomlin type switchboard operators to complete all calls. Phone plans including nationwide calling would not exist. Anything outside of a local calling area would be charged as long distance like it used to be.
The complaints are to preserve an outdated labor market against advances in automation.
Looking forward, the advertising market may enable consumers to 3D image their face and body to enable viewing a virtual model of themselves modeling the products. Does this swimsuit make my butt look big?
Perfect example of viral Internet marketing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They're missing a trick here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering how cheap is to rent processing power and disk space nowadays, it's perfectly feasible. There's only one flaw, which in your geekiness you wouldn't find it so obvious. People want to be lied to. They don't want to see an image of themselves wearing something and compare it with the perfect model. When they buy clothing, they tend to imagine it looks on them closer to what it looks like on the model, not how it does in reality. Pretty much like the monkey getting angry at the mirror.
Re:Not to worry! (Score:4, Interesting)
I was thinking about that the other day when I was flipping channels and caught Surrogates. I wonder what would happen to body image over time in the world of Surrogates (or GiTS, if you prefer). Would people stick to realistic-ish forms or keep pushing the boundaries until within a few decades most people look seriously alien? It would give a very solid answer to the nature vs. nurture influence of sexual attraction.
What we teach daughters (Score:5, Interesting)
I have repeated this to my kids numerous times: a person can go from good looking to ugly in the time it takes them to open their mouths and say something.
This seems especially alien to girls because every social cue they see on TV and in print seems to scream at them to make good impressions. As such, I really do not know what to make of all the cries of perfect models casting clothes.
What is a fashion designer supposed to do? Show their clothes on physically disgusting people?
Re:Excellent (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Nobody is my lord. You have your lords in gov't right now telling you what you can and cannot do. Ron Paul is the opposite of a 'lord', a guy who would stay out of your life.
2. The goal of work is to produce something for economy, not to give anybody a job so that they would have to spend their time working. That's what your lords, Keynesians want to do - to give you jobs.
All this nonsense about everybody just be given a job for the sake of them having jobs. Jobs are just means to the end, which is production of things people want and ability to generate income/profit.
The best thing that this society can achieve is to automate every single job that we do today, so that people can be freed up to do something else altogether. If you can't understand the basic principle that what we do today is trivial and we shouldn't be wasting our lives on it and instead we should be coming up with new, non-trivial things to do, while what we do should be automated away, then you are still stuck in cave-man mentality, AC.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
You could say exactly the same about every athlete out there, your career only lasts as long as your body is in tip top shape. Those that have played at the professional but not enough to retire go on to find other work when they're 30-40. I don't really see your point.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
And I'm sure someone would still have a problem with it... equating the magazine to turning women into faceless/nameless sex objects.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
look.. this is a *CATALOG* shoot (Score:4, Interesting)
You have to understand that this is for a catalog shoot: not high fashion, not runway, not super model territory. You're looking at cranking out 100-200 images in a day of 100 different sweaters, trousers, bikinis or what have you. Used to be that you'd hire cheap rookie models for this at (if possible less than) minimum wage. What do you get for an $8/hr model? Someone who whines, who doesn't know how to change clothes quickly, who doesn't know how to stand in the lights, who isn't necessarily exactly the right shape, etc. They're someone who is moderately attractive (her friends told her "you should be a model"), and it's certainly a way to pay your dues to get in to the business. But it sure isn't glamorous.. it's tedious, hard, long day kind of work, and realistically it's no different than photographing a series of angle iron brackets for a machinery catalog (which is probably what they'll do the next day in the studio). At least you don't have to spend all night in the darkroom developing film and making proof sheets for the client any more.
Good looking synthetic model mannequin and photoshopped headshots... a most practical scheme. Camera is locked off on a tripod, crew of dressers putting the clothes on the mannequins and rolling them into place. What's not to like? An assembly line process with automation.
It all comes down to productivity (Score:4, Interesting)
They use skinny models because they are all the same so when need to display a new clothing design, you can simply grab any of them and the outfit will fit. If the woman has curves, then the outfit needs to be fitted. Besides bust, waist, hips also need to consider shoulder width, torso length, etc. If all models are same stick women of size 0, then don't need to deal with fitting.
It comes down to productivity which is why sizes are small, medium, large and the material is stretchy so it really doesn't matter to get a good fit. Nowadays for fitted gowns (i.e. wedding dresses), they are ***all*** strapless which makes productivity much easier and don't have to deal with fitting the shoulders (not all women look good in strapless but they have no choice these days).
Same stupid mentality as programming of TV shows. It's either reality, law, medical, or a bankrupt remake. Instead of something new and creative, stick with something simple to maintain high productivity. So now they have virtual models which means they don't have to make the outfit at all!
However, as others have noted this is not exactly a new concept. They used virtual models back in the 1930s, 40s, 50s but those had to be handdrawn as computer graphics were not that great back then.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
Because faces, eye color, hair all matter when women wear an outfit. For example, certain color or pattern dresses look better with blond hair. Certain cuts of a shoulder or neck line can look better with different shaped faces. Short hair vs long hair for certain styles. It all matters when putting it together.
It's the same with makeup. You use certain shades and strokes of color to help balance a woman's face or accentuate certain aspects, e.g., cheekbones.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
Still sounds like a terrible idea
I'm missing something here. Why is it a terrible idea? This is not a rhetorical question. I fail to see the moral failing or social downside in this. Could you care to explain your objections?
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
While I believe that feminists are externalising the female obsession with beauty (society made me miserable!), comments like yours are even more baffling.
Fact: Women like to be beautiful -- it is interwoven into female social hierarchies.
Fact: Fashion is made for female consumption -- by an order of magnitude.
Fact: Women almost always dislike being sexualised.
If a woman drops her stuff in front of a camera, then I believe it is fine to sexualise her at that moment. But the minute she steps out of that context -- well your brain should step out of that context too. And fashion has *NOTHING* to do with pornography.
Re:Cheaper (Score:4, Interesting)
and how many torture and damage their bodies to fit into that archetype?
I too will be relieved if this part of the fashion industry dies. However, the female obsession with thinness is only indirectly related to the fashion industry. Beauty is part of female social hierarchies. Women will /always/ create beauty standards to discriminate high-status and low-status women. It is the human condition. (This is something that feminists refused to acknowledge exists.)
And status-anxiety is just a form of suffering.
So -- removing pictures of women from magazines simply treats the symptom, but not the cause.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
Fiction: Women almost always dislike being sexualised.
Women dislike being ONLY sexualized. So do men IF it ever happened to them.
Here is a simple tip for boys, girls don't mind if you look at their tits, they mind if you ONLY look at their tits. Women are as sexual as men if not more so but they want to be more then a collection of body parts. Think of them as a total package of person with lots of soft bits that are nice to touch and you got a deal.
And think about, as much as men might like to think that they would love it if women used them for nothing but sex, what man would be satisfied to sit at home until their mistress called them to perform on demand and never have anything they say taken serious or even listened to.