Canadian retailer Jacob just announced they will no longer retouch photos to alter the body shapes of their models. Their new policy begins as they launch their fall campaign for both Jacob and Jacob Lingerie brands.
Jacob is claiming to be the first Canadian company to do this. I can't say for sure if that claim is true, but I've never heard of another Canadian company doing this... although we've reported in the past that some European magazines (in Germany and France) have already taken this step.
"Jacob has always made an effort to promote a healthy image of the female body" says spokesperson and Communications Director Cristelle Basmaji. "By adopting an official policy and broadcasting it publicly, we hope to reverse the trend in digital photo manipulation that has become excessive in our industry. Our decision to never reshape the bodies of our models is particularly innovative for our Jacob Lingerie campaigns. The basis of the new "no retouching" policy is to promote an honest and realistic image of the female body."
Although this is an awesome move by Jacob and a huge step in the right direction, it's important to note that Jacob is not completely ditching Photoshop. They will still use it for things like smoothing out skin tone and removing scars or tattoos. Hortense from Jezebel writes, "While it would be nice to have a company embrace tattoos, uneven skin tone, and scars (you know, "imperfections," aka "shit everyone has in real life but are made to feel insecure about because said things are airbrushed away in mass marketed images of beauty"), but it's hard to fault the company's transparency..."
Jacob will be releasing three versions of some of their Fall campaign photos: the raw image, the photo as seen in their advertising campaign and one that has been retouched as would have been done in the past. It will be interesting to see how the three photos differ - I'll try and post them on the blog when they come out!
For more information: CBC.ca, JACOB
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