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.'"
Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Why hire a model, photographer, etc., every time you change product lines, when you can just mass-produce images on a computer? I'd guess that the motivation here is more cost cutting than aesthetics. Still sounds like a terrible idea, but I'm sure we'll be seeing more of this in the near future.
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Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Same thing they did before mass media made it possible to have a career as a model. They haven't come up with a computer that can do the world's oldest profession yet.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
They aren't far away, especially in japan.
Re:Cheaper (Score:4, Insightful)
A couple of generations ago the average woman's dress size was much, much smaller.
Two points:
1) This isn't necessarily true, it depends on your definition of dress sizes. For instance, go to Gap and grab a dress that's size 2, and then go across the mall to Lane Bryant and grab a size 2 dress there, and compare. Dress sizes aren't really standardized.
2) It's not really a time thing, it's a place thing: go outside the USA, and you'll find that obesity is not the norm everywhere, it's largely an American phenomenon (though also a problem in the UK and parts of Western Europe).
There's several problems as I see it:
1) Lack of exercise. This is a giant problem in the USA because everyone drives everywhere. However, there are some exceptions. Go spend a week in Manhattan (NYC) and walk around the streets of midtown and downtown. You're not going to see many fat people there like you would on the streets of Omaha. People in Manhattan walk too much to get fat; they walk from their brownstone several blocks to the subway, then several blocks to work, then out to lunch, out to dinner, etc. They don't have cars (very few people in Manhattan do because there's no place to park them), so they have to walk everywhere, and while the subways are present and convenient, those don't exactly give you door-to-door service; the stations are a pretty decent distance apart, so unless you happen to live/work right next to a subway station, you're going to be doing some walking every day. After your week in Manhattan, if you're an average American, you're going to be in much better shape than you were the week before. Of course, there's a few exceptions: rich fuckers like Donald Trump don't get all this exercise because they take a limo everywhere. But then Donald doesn't look like he's all that healthy, does he?
2) Bad food. The quality of food in the USA is downright horrible compared to 50 years ago: GMO produce, fruit with no taste, nasty grain-fed beef pumped full of antibiotics, cows forced to eat ground-up cow parts and cow brains, chickens that live their entire lives in cramped cages, etc. You can avoid much of this by buying organic produce and meat (like grass-fed free-range beef, free-range chicken, bison meat, etc.), but most of the population doesn't. Of course, much of the population does much worse than this, not only eating bad-quality food, but eating too much red meat (and the shitty quality stuff too), eating garbage loaded with trans fats, not eating any fresh fruit, and in general having a very poor diet.
Poor diet with shit food plus little exercise = obesity and early death. It's not rocket science.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Informative)
News flash: A 120 lb woman is not overweight unless she's a midget.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Informative)
This is a perfect example. Marilyn Monroe, one of the sexiest ladies that ever lived and a sex icon to this day,weighed over 160 lbs. That used to be perfectly normal. The ideal standard today is so bone thin that women have two choices... anorexia or giving up... there is no middle ground any more. Look at all the fashion models, human coat hangers, stick people, a life support system for bones.
Then you foist a fast food diet on people, and you're screwed. Ever see what they feed kids at school cafeterias? Why is it that when guys look at girls, the girls have to conform to some insane idea of beauty and physical form, and the same guys don't just have muffin tops, they look like hot air balloons at the belt line. Tell you what, when those same guys stop swilling beer and munching potato chips, those girls will stop sneaking ice cream.
Here's the stupid part. The human body is designed to get fat. Its because we all descended from folks who survived famines and disasters. The way they did it was they put weight on when times were good. Now there are no famines and we just balloon up. Worse, our food producers manipulate our genetic hunger for sweet and salty to grow their bottom line. Our society is not geared to support people with a normal weight. How many food commercials do your see a day? How many food billboards do you see on the road to work every day? How many fast food places do you pass driving around.
If it were a matter of just will power, there would be no fat people, nobody wants to look or feel that way. Criminalizing it with discrimination, stigma, and despotic abuse isn't the answer either. We need to move our culture as a whole to state of healthy and happy. Stop looking at one another as a mark to be taken, used, and sucked dry financially. Its time for us to take care of one another and that begins by getting honest about ourselves and how we choose to relate to one another.
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Depends on her height. If she's 5'10", then 120lb is anorexic; she should really be 150lbs or so. If she's 5.1", then 120lbs is overweight. 5'1" (for a female) is petite, not "midget"; a woman would have to be under perhaps 4'10" to be considered abnormally short. Add 3 or 4 inches for men.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Informative)
This is a perfect example. Marilyn Monroe, one of the sexiest ladies that ever lived and a sex icon to this day,weighed over 160 lbs. That used to be perfectly normal.
Citation needed. A quick Google search shows that her studio said she was between 115 and 120 lbs, at a height of 5' 5.5". For that height, that weight sounds perfectly normal; to be 160 lbs healthily, a woman would need to be about 5'10" or more.
The ideal standard today is so bone thin that women have two choices
Bullshit. The ideal standard today is healthily thin, which is admittedly hard in the USA these days thanks to lack of exercise and shitty food and shitty diets. That doesn't mean the ideal is wrong, it means that society is wrong in how people live and eat. Trying to tell people that eating trans fats and dying of heart disease at 55 is "OK" doesn't make it so.
If it were a matter of just will power, there would be no fat people, nobody wants to look or feel that way.
It's not a matter of willpower, it's a matter of diet and exercise. Go spend some time in Manhattan and see how many fat people you see walking around the streets of downtown there. In places where people get lots of exercise (because they have to walk a lot), they're a lot healthier than in places where they drive everywhere. The people of Manhattan aren't thin because of willpower, they're thin because they have no choice and they're forced to walk a lot, unless they're like Donald Trump and can afford a private limo to shuttle them around. Same goes in many other places in the world; go to India and hang out with the growing middle class there. Not a lot of obesity there either, even though they do have money for plenty of food unlike their lowest classes. They don't have the crap diet we have, and they get more exercise.
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Marilyn had a good body size and shape. Weight is irrelevant. I've seen women that weigh 130lbs and have an unsightly gut, or nearly 200 and were just tall, broad, and certainly attractive. And I'm totally not into bigger girls. Proportions mean a lot more than just weight.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Above link may be NSFW.
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Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Same thing they did before mass media made it possible to have a career as a model. They haven't come up with a computer that can do the world's oldest profession yet.
"Yet" being the key word.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
You're so offensive. I've dated a lot of models, there are slutty, dumb girls, but there are just as many nice, smart, good girls. They're just normal people.
If someone came up to you and said "I'll pay you $1000 to let me take a picture of you,", and you say "ok"... that doesn't make you a dumb slut.
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I have some ideas.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
What will dimwit hot chicks do for a living now?
Marry rich and bang the pool boy on the side.
Re:Cheaper (Score:4, Insightful)
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, Insightful)
And those are exactly the kind of people who should not be allowed within ten kilometers from any university. Then suddenly there would be enough scholarships available for people who actually can and want to study, as opposed to becoming an underpaid professional athlete with a student ID, and after retirement/graduation a fraud (and optionally a cripple).
Athletic scholarships at American universities are almost entirely funded by alumni. These athletic scholarships aren't taking away any money from academic scholarships.
I was on an athletic scholarship which gave me an undergraduate education at almost no cost. I had both a successful athletic and academic undergraduate career; however there aren't many well paid professional opportunities for track athletes, so with the additional encouragement of an injury, I had to give that part up. I'm now in a Computer Science PhD program with several first author publications in A-level conferences. Being an athlete taught me the discipline and time management skills that have allowed me to succeed as a graduate student. As an undergrad, I was always practicing or traveling to competitions, so I learned to spend every bit of free time studying. Now, in graduate school, I can't believe how lazy many of the other students are -- they have nothing else to do but study, yet they waste so much of their time shooting the breeze.
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Re:Cheaper (Score:4, Insightful)
Athletic scholarships at American universities are almost entirely funded by alumni. These athletic scholarships aren't taking away any money from academic scholarships.
Then alumni should open their own professional sports teams and stop shitting up education for future generations.
Re:Cheaper (Score:4, Informative)
They may not take away scholarship funds but they take away enrollment slots in the school from someone who actually wants to be there to learn and not to place their entire future in the hands of professional sports scouts.
You're assuming that all college athletes a) don't care about academics, b) are worse students than the average non-athlete and c) all aspire to be professional athletes. This is only true for high profile sports programs, such as football and basketball. You're also assuming that somehow, athletes deny better academically qualified applicants. At my undergrad university, a NCAA D1 school, the average athlete GPA and graduation rate was higher than the school average.
Re:Cheaper (Score:4, Insightful)
You're assuming that all college athletes a) don't care about academics, b) are worse students than the average non-athlete
On average, they definitely are, and if they were not, they have to spend their time training and participating in competition when everyone else is studying.
c) all aspire to be professional athletes.
It does not matter what they aspire to. They are for all practical purpose professional athletes, they are paid in tuition.
Re: (Score:3)
Athletic scholarships at American universities are almost entirely funded by alumni. These athletic scholarships aren't taking away any money from academic scholarships.
stop shitting up education for future generations.
I'm just curious how you're coming to this conclusion. How are athletes "shitting up" education? Are they somehow bringing everyone else down? Is the quality of education suffering at universities with high power athletic teams? Are more academically qualified applicants really being turned down? I think not; at a typical American public university with 20-40k students, maybe 500 of them are athletes. That's a pretty small percentage.
Re:What they have done for century (Score:4, Insightful)
You forgot "newscaster". There are dozens of them now, who can't boil water without burning it. Can't pour piss out of a boot, if the instructions are written on the bottom of the sole. People who can fall of the Empire State Building, and get lost before they hit the ground. Dumber than any rock you've ever met. But, they've got great asses, and at least moderate cleavage, so they get on television!
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: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.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps, but the same could be said for real models. If all they really cared about was the clothes, they wouldn't show the model's faces, either.
But they do, and for obvious reasons. They're not just trying to sell you $2 of fabric for $55- they're trying to sell you a self-image boost. And they must have found that a beautiful face is a big part of a beautiful body.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
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)
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, Insightful)
Absolutely. I doubt they can't find a model with such a body; sure they can. It's about making the process much shorter and cheaper.
I don't see anyone complaining for the mannequins not being human beings and being too idealistic. Also, keep in mind that this was done for both women and men, and yet protests are raised only for the aesthetic demands placed on female bodies.
Re:Cheaper (Score:4, Informative)
Well, that's not strictly true. There has been a backlash against skinnier male mannequins [guardian.co.uk] and you do see them in some clothing stores. I blame the emos.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
It's about making the process much shorter and cheaper. I don't see anyone complaining for the mannequins not being human beings
When I was walking through Amsterdam, I saw a lot of live underwear models in the shop windows; seemed quite a popular and successful concept...
Re:Cheaper (Score:4, Funny)
If the movie Looker [wikipedia.org] is any indication, this can only end in a lot of deaths and a nude scene with Susan Dey.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Fashion designers apparently use rail-thin models because they lack the curves of your average woman and therefore the folds, lines, depths, etc. of their clothing will be more emphasized.
That is, fashion models are generally nothing more than walking, living mannequins. I'd be glad to see this particular part of the fashion industry disappear altogether. How many of these women are naturally that skinny, and how many torture and damage their bodies to fit into that archetype?
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. And you notice that "super models" and actresses are a lot plumper, with decent curves, and sometimes even a tiny bit of body fat. Women have to look like they can survive pregnancy before they are sexually attractive (thought there'll be some weird fetishists who'll say otherwise). A rail-thin model is essentially a self-propelled coat-hanger, not the epitome of beauty.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife is pregnant and starting to show it and my inner cave man thinks she's so HOT!
Thanks for the "self-propelled coat-hanger" quote. I'm using that next time I see her browsing a fashion catalog.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, as somebody who has always been slim enough to frequently get comments along the lines of "you need to eat more" (and it really isn't fun to get told that when I'm perfectly healthy ), I get a bit ticked off with sentiments like this. Yes, it's horrible that the fashion industry makes curvy women feel bad, but the reverse is not a good idea either. I think it was in the UK authorities banned pictures of a slim model as "socially irresponsible" recently, because she was too thin. Thing is, she looked very similar to myself, and my doctor thinks I'm fine ( as does the BMI scale , even though it is obviously not all that reliable ).
There's a wide range of healthy body weights, and calling people on the lower end of the scale names because you're upset with how those who are chubby are treated will only make things worse. Replacing one set of really harmful sentiments about body weight with another will result in people feeling pushed to fit some very narrow line between "omg, you shouldn't be so slim, you must have some eating disorder" and "too 'fat' to be a model".
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)
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?
Second Life Models (Score:3)
I dunno it seems to work well for selling virtual clothes in Second Life. I found a cute leather thong for my well endowed furry avatar. /sarcasm
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
In the clothing store...
The women would slowly walk between the displays. Frequently putting their hand out and very lightly run it along the selection of products. Periodically, they would pull out an item. They would look it up and down, inspecting it from all angles. Then they would put it back on the display. All the while the man that came with them would follow them with a board blank stare.
Whereas, in the Software store...
The men would slowly walk between the displays. Frequently putting their hand out and very lightly run it along the selection of products. Periodically, they would pull out an item. They would look it up and down, inspecting it from all angles. Then they would put it back on the display. All the while the woman that came with them would follow them with a board blank stare.
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So what (Score:5, Insightful)
'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.'
Deal with it. Modern concepts of beauty as promoted by clothiers might be unrealistic, that doesn't mean anyone has the right to tell them what they can consider beautiful.
Re:So what (Score:5, Insightful)
Deal with it. Modern concepts of beauty as promoted by clothiers might be unrealistic, that doesn't mean anyone has the right to tell them what they can consider beautiful.
Oh yes they do, they just can't back it up with force. Deal with that.
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Deal with it. Modern concepts of beauty as promoted by clothiers might be unrealistic, that doesn't mean anyone has the right to tell them what they can consider beautiful.
Oh yes they do, they just can't back it up with force. Deal with that.
And oh yes they can. Backing up your opinion with force is a time-honored tradition.
Robot indicator missing (Score:5, Funny)
Artifical humans are required to show their robot indicator hologram at all times.
It may only be switched off by court order. This is clearly a violation.
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Artifical humans are required to show their robot indicator hologram at all times.
for fundies, this would be the number of the beast. that scares a lot of people.
but... for robots, its only the number of the batch. nothing to worry about!
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You mean like a big glittery "H" on their forehead?
Rules (Score:3, Insightful)
Photoshopping (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just plain old photoshopping. The blurb makes it sound like she's a 3D computer model or something similarly advanced. I'm sure the originals were based off of a real person, and probably touched up a bit with photoshop like practically every social magazine and advertisement had has done for decades now. I'm not sure what all the uproar is about. Do people really think that amongst the billions of people on this planet that no-one has a body that looks as good as this "virtual" model? Sure it's not representative of your typical, average female, but it most certainly is not unrealistic. I just don't understand the evil / anti technology slant to this story. That's just a money saving / convenience type thing.
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I'm sure the originals were based off of a real person, and probably touched up a bit with photoshop
RTFA, and you'll see that they were based off dolls, and photoshopped to make them look more human.
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Well that would be a ridiculous assertion. Nobody makes mannequins that way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannequin [wikipedia.org]
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H&M's spokesman said that there were no real people used, and that the models are, indeed, total 3D computer models. The claim is that these are not real women touched up with Photoshop. These are 100% computer generated images.
I have a hard time believing it's true, but it's damned impressive if it is. Best CGI ever.
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.
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:They're missing a trick here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm... One could step into the booth at H&M and strip to have a kinect (pehaps enhanced with robo-tweezers to detect firmness) make a 3d model of your body which could then be used to show off any clothes (physics properties of which of course have been entered into the machine).
The clothing-simulator would of course try to lie, pulling certain parameters in the direction of perfection to more efficiently get you to close the deal.
Re:They're missing a trick here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternatively, one could step into the booth at H&M and try on the damn clothes.
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Actually, there is a product like this for retailers which basically involves a robot modeling clothes [cnet.com]. An interesting idea that I hope catches on.
Are we blind?? (Score:3)
I read TFA, but haven't visited H&M's site.
Only a legally blind person can't tell those pics are Photoshopped.
The chicks' bodies are EXACTY the same, except for the head/hair.
Even their faces aren't very naturally looking (sort of uncanny valley).
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Yeah they're pretty fake looking, right off the bat you can see both pics have been mangled pretty hard in Photoshop. It's hard to tell that they're completely artificial though, I could believe that the pics were based on real women at some point.
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I think the point of the article is that even though everybody knows all models in all fashion magazines are shopped, that it still puts out an unattainable standard of beauty. People still see it, their brains process the images and are affected, regardless of the fact that they know it isn't real.
if the models are virtual.... (Score:3)
Maybe they should have a contest with their customers, "Be the next H&M model"
Maybe it's just cheaper and faster ... (Score:3)
... to use manikins and Photoshop, which are available to model immediately 24/7 and don't charge and hourly rate, then to use real people.
Now maybe the manikins are unrealistic but so are the human models. Anybody see Victoria's Secret models walking down their street today?
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)
If you can computer-generate the models... (Score:5, Insightful)
...couldn't you come up with some that are attractive? I'm not into fat chicks, but bones sticking out is not a good look. Curves, please!
Re:If you can computer-generate the models... (Score:5, Informative)
Figures I'd lose my mod points this morning. I looked at the article, and thought that the images were no different that a lot of high priced catalogs that seem to stuff our mailbox. I suppose my wife would be happy - seeing sharp angles for bones does not do it for me. If I wanted hard and angular, I'd climb into bed with a box of wrenches.
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?
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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...
OMG! OMG! Are you saying my teeth are crooked!? Daddy, I want them whitened!!! OMG! Its all your fault for not having proper dental when I was six. I HATE YOU!!!!
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OK, but wouldn't a designer have to compete with those who show their clothes on better looking models?
Using that logic, wouldn't a paint shop have to show their work on a car that is dirty instead of clean?
so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Photoshopping is so common nowadays (not just for body retouching) you'd be a fool to believe any printed ad didn't have something adjusted. Might be litter removed off the ground, more people in the crowd, a tummy tuck or two, or it could be the entire shot was assembled from a dozen pieces. If you're crying foul when a CGI model is being drawn in, you probably have no idea how gullible you already are.
As long as the product itself isn't being photoshopped or a fake scale comparison (like that pool we saw recently where they'd pasted in kids of pics at about 50% normal size to make the pool appear larger) then I'm ok with it.
This is like complaining that the store has the clothes on mannequins instead of live models. Actually, I wonder if there was a similar ruckus back when stores started using more realistic mannequins?
More real than real? (Score:5, Funny)
Look at it this way...the virtual models are more likely to pass a Turing test than the real ones...
Think Star Wars (Score:3)
Think Star Wars here, it's actually on topic. Think Jar Jar Binks and avoid any homicidal tendencies that come to mind.
What most people don't realize is that Jar Jar Binks wasn't a character, he was an advertisement. He was advertising the ability to create a fully functional actor for a movie on behalf of his studio to the industry.
This is the same idea, you find the features you want, replicate them well enough no one can tell and you can now axe the cost of labor. You can also be safe from things like 'model get DUI' or other such unpleasantness. Your also safe from an actress aging, getting pregnant, dying from an overdose and so on.
This of course has been helped by models and actors being so heavily Photoshopped that we've arguably already crossed the uncanny valley by changing the public perception of what a person /should/ look like. For lack of a better way to put, the public generally can't tell and only those in the industry are going to know better or even care.
Just as the last fighter pilot has already been born, at some point we will also say the last model / actor has been born. It's outsourcing plain and simple.
People that once thought it was the problem of factory workers and weren't concerned are going to get a really rude wake up call. The precedent was set with other industries and I can't think of any industry that is /safe/ from it.
So... the complaint is what exactly? (Score:3)
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.
Aimi Eguchi (Score:4, Informative)
Recently in Japan, a new member in a pop group called AKB48 was "announced", but she was actually a CGI composite of of 6 existing members [wikipedia.org].
People figured it out pretty fast though. So, this sort of thing is not without precedent.
The dudes are virtual too... (Score:3)
Fascinating that none of the articles mention that the dudes are virtual as well. And they don't use any guys in the example images either. (If you visit the HM website it's easy to find some obvious body-doubles for swimming trunks.)
Focusing on issues with body images is not necessarily a bad thing, but only focusing on women is a bit sexist IMHO. Kind of ironic considering that's the drum they are banging on.
You've got this all wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Why does everyone assume that this is all about keeping the costs down by not hiring models? H&M use computer-generated images because they allow customers to mix and match their clothes in a virtual dressing room. Most pictures have a "Try on" link underneath them. All the clothes still have to be photographed, and they still photograph actual models. The images have to be processed and prepared, so it isn't much cheaper than a regular photoshoot. H&M are using Looklet [looklet.com] to do all of that, and other shops use them too. H&M never hid these facts or claimed that the photos were all real models either, there's no scandal here.
See my blog for the article I wrote about it. [latentexistence.me.uk]
"Perfect"? (Score:3)
Those look anorexic. Is this really considered "perfection"?
They could have gone about this better. (Score:3)
They could have gone about this better.
I understand the cost-cutting aspect, and to be honest, I cannot really blame them for that. But, they could have handled the whole thing in a fashion that avoided any misconceptions (or accusations).
Rather then paste different faces on a CG body with different bikinis, they should have used the exact same model, a real one that embodied the characteristics they sought, and created an interface that allowed a website viewer to swap out bikinis on that same model, paper-doll fashion. Pictures would be taken of the various bikinis on a mannequin that was built to match the model's real body so that the bikinis "hung" properly when overlayed on the model paper-doll.
I think that it would be obvious to the user that..
a) the bikinis and the model were photographed separately,
b) some sort of visual manipulation was used to make that possible, and
c) no trees were killed because it's a website instead of junk-mail.
The hard part is finding the right model, and the process of doing so is still subject to the issues of body perception in advertising. Perhaps the solution to that would be to provide a range of model paper-dolls, of varied body shapes, that the user could choose from so that they might more accurately match their own figure.
RTFA (Score:4, Funny)
disingenuous (Score:3)
> '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.'
This seems a bit disingenuous. It is much more likely that it's easier and cheaper to create the images online, but that wouldn't make a good story.
Seriously, doesn't ANYONE remember when clothing catalogs had artists renderings instead of photographs?
Re:This is an issue for women (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This is an issue for women (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
Companies should aim to have the optimal, not the minimal, number of employees. That will include some excess in basically every department to handle a surge in demand (you don't want to have to hire in reaction, that is an exceedingly bad position to be in).
Re: (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 pro
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
All very well, but I get the feeling that the things that most people would be "freed up to do" in those circumstances are likely to include starving and becoming homeless.
It *should* of course be used to create a basic income for everyone in order to allow us to pursue higher things, but I'll bet you it won't.
Re:I'm not seeing the down side here (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument some women put forward is that idealizing these models perpetuates anorexia in the population due to women starving themselves to achieve the same body shape.
But if you hear the argument that it's the fault of men, don't buy it. It's not men, it's the fashion industry who wants living mannequins. Best case in point: Most porn stars do not have this kind of figure.
Re: (Score:3)
Because stick thin models don't cause the clothes to wrinkle in odd ways that make them appear less attractive. They could obviously try to do the same with virtual fatter models, but I suspect the shadows and such would make it look even more wrong.