Page 10 - Grasp English B1+ (Student Book)

1 Lookıng Awesome

C. Read the text and answer the following questions. In which country or countries did the designer:
a. give Honig a fringe? d. add a bright backdrop?
b. make her skin lighter? e. change the colour of Honig’s eyes?
c. show her with her hair down? f. make her look slimmer?
When you read articles in magazines and look at the photographs of models, do you know that these pictures
are usually photoshopped to create the perfect image? Picture editors like to add curly hair to a bald man,
or make a well-built model look more athletic by giving them muscles.
Do you realise that the changes made to the image often depend on the culture the designer or editor comes
from? Esther Honig, an American journalist, put this idea to the test. She sent a photo of herself to more than
twenty designers around the world with a simple message: edit the photograph to make me look beautiful.
The results are interesting!

Almost all of the designers add obvious make-up to the original photo – a touch of lipstick, eyeshadow and
mascara. But then, different designers have different ideas about how to make her beautiful. For example,
the designer from Argentina seems to think that Honig’s face is quite plain, so they add shiny lip-gloss and
a sparkling background. Interestingly, some designers change the colour of her eyes: those in Australia and
Serbia both give her bright blue eyes, while another in the USA goes for green.
A few alter the colour of her skin slightly. In images from both Germany and Indonesia, she appears paler,
but in one of the edited pictures from India, her skin has been given a darker tone. Her complexion is always
made to appear very smooth and clear.
A Bangladeshi designer goes a step further and creates a slimmer Honig, and another changes her hairstyle,
giving her a fringe. In her original photograph Honig had her hair tied up, but two designers, from the USA and
the Philippines, give her a new style with long, loose hair. Others make her hair fairer or darker.
All in all, it’s fascinating to see the different approaches the designers take to create their idea of a good-
looking woman. Thankfully, there are now many campaigns calling for an end to extreme photoshopping in
fashion magazines. At the same time, high-street shops and brands are using a wider range of body shapes
in their advertising, in order to make the fashion industry more inclusive.

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