Most major players in the fashion and beauty industries have been extremely slow to follow in the footsteps of companies like Aerie and Dove in pledging not to airbrush away their models’ so-called “flaws.” Emily Ratajkowski, however, is here to hurry them up.
On Friday, the model and actress called out Madame Figaro, a French magazine, for photoshopping a picture of her that was used on the cover of this week’s issue. Ratajkowski posted both the original, non-retouched photo and the final cover image to Instagram in a side-by-side comparison showing that her breasts were lifted and lips narrowed for the cover photo. In the accompanying caption, EmRata described her frustration with the magazine—and the industry as a whole—for sending the message that her natural beauty is, apparently, not beautiful enough.
“Everyone is uniquely beautiful in their own ways. We all have insecurities about the things that make us different from a typical ideal of beauty. I, like so many of us, try every day to work past those insecurities,” she wrote. “I was extremely disappointed to see my lips and breasts altered in photoshop on this cover. I hope the fashion industry will finally learn to stop trying to stifle the things that make us unique and instead begin to celebrate individuality.”
This is far from the first time the 26-year-old has spoken out against societal standards of beauty. Most recently, in her cover story for the August 2017 issue of Allure, she criticised the societal instinct to censor women’s bodies. “It really bothers me that people are so offended by breasts,” she said. “That’s when I realised how f**ked our culture is. When we see breasts, we don’t think of beauty and femininity. We think of vulgar, oversexualised images.” On the topic of allowing women to embrace their own bodies, she added, “To me, any expression that is empowered and is your own as a woman is feminist. If a woman decides to dress sexy, it doesn’t mean she’s not a feminist. [We] should be doing things for ourselves. If that is the woman’s choice, and it makes her feel good, then that’s great. Good for her.”
A post shared by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Sep 15, 2017 at 8:12am PDT
A post shared by Madame Figaro Paris (@madamefigarofr) on Sep 15, 2017 at 9:46am PDT
