Primary Research

From doing research into 'How to advertise underwear without using a model', I have come across a number of articles that are highlighting companies for their advertising.

The first article is titled 'Why does the fashion industry hate real women'. The article is addressing and highlighting the issue of H&M using computerised models in their online catalogue. 'High Street fashion chain H&M has admitted the swimwear models featured in its latest online catalogue are not real. ‘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 . . . The message is clear: buy our clothes, not our models.' However this is not the impression that is given off. A Swedish website was the one to 'notice the poses and contours in each photo were identical' but until then 'the fact each body was of a uniform size, with no extraneous curves, no tiny flaw' was not brought to anyones attention 'because over the past three decades, we have been brainwashed to accept perfection as the new reality'. This article addresses a number of important issues as to why we believe that the images in the advertising world are true. This is something that I want to take away with my design. I want to create something that removes the model so that these judgements and false thoughts of how a persons body should be are removed.  

( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2071877/H-M-uses-models-created-computers-real-women-advertise-clothes.html )

Another article that I have looked at is from the Business Insider UK. The article 'Here's How Men's Underwear Ads Would Look If They Used 'Real' Men As Models' explains how 'the british newspaper The Sun asked four male readers to pose as underwear models'. The results are said to 'show that men too, suffer from being exposed to unrealistic body images'.

( http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-underwear-ads-would-look-with-real-men-2014-7?r=US&IR=T )

This set of images clearly highlights how advertising is only using a particular 'build' of male, providing us with an image of what we think a man should look like therefore implying a gender stereotype. Although the images are mocking the advertising, this would be an interesting aspect to look at for my practical work, using a comparison of what advertising is like now, compared to how the product is seen in the real world. Another route to explore would be to look at removing the model from the advertising so there were no gender stereotypes present. This would mean that comments such as the ones present in the articles above would not be made as the model would have been removed from the image.

Although the articles are not academic they clearly demonstrate the publics view and opinion on underwear advertising. They also clearly illustrate how advertising effects the public and the fight that is ongoing to stop these images being a way of life. This would not be achieved from the same view from a scholarly article therefore this demonstrates that looking further a field is sometimes beneficial when dealing with a subject area that work with the public.