American Eagle Launch Lingerie Campaign Sans Photoshop & Airbushing

Hate bra shopping and wished you had your own private bra-fitter in your house? Well here’s something to get excited about ladies. (No we’re not doing an giveaway where you win your own private bra-fitter, it’s better).

American Eagle’s lingerie line Aerie aimed at teen girls has just decided to throw out its marketing manual and do something extraordinary for its customers. They just launched their Spring 2014 campaign featuring a range of models who are all shapes, sizes and ethnicities, and that’s just the beginning. The final images are completely free of retouching, photoshopping and airbrushing!

That’s even part of their slogan on the pics you see here.

“We think its time for a change. We think its time to get real and think real. We want every girl to feel good about who they are and what they look like, inside out,” the campaign says.

“This means no more retouching our girls and no more supermodels. Why? Because there’s no reason to retouch beauty. We think the real you is sexy,” says Aerie Lingerie.

The brand has been around since 2006 and is doing something important for its core demographic, that of 15-21 year old girls. This is crucial age women young age are heavily influenced by the media, by fashion and the women they grow up with. We hope this message goes a long way into teaching them to think positively about themselves, and encourage mothers to shop at Aerie for their daughters here instead of other brands.

When female shoppers go online to see the way a bra looks, they will see it displayed on not just one, but multiple models with varied body shapes so customers can get a more accurate representation of what it will look like on them. Hasn’t this been the problem for all of us, girls? It’s so hard to shop for a bra online because the majority of women don’t look like the ridiculously skinny (yet mysteriously busty) airbrushed model on the site.

For the large part, women in society who actively buy bras look more like the women in this campaign that any Victoria’s Secret campaign ever released. Just sayin…

In the video below Emma Bazilian form Adweek tells Good Morning America “Hopefully, this is a new age in advertising for female empowerment.” YES!

If there were more big fashion brands taking a stand against the traditional norms and choose to be more inclusive of the spectrum of women who exist in the world with buying power, a shift in attitudes will happen quite quickly. But hey, we are realists and know anything worth having or changing doesn’t come without a fight.

This important movement of female empowerment from within the corporate sector (as well as from the outside) is gathering momentum. Big steps have been taken. New York has included new state legislation that protects the rights of young models, the same way film and TV does in Hollywood, thanks to the tireless campaigning of The Model Alliance. Time magazine says this move will discourage brands from using prepubescent girls to model clothes for adult women, and will force them to use more healthy, realistic adult models in campaigns.

H&M’s male ceo Karl Persson vowed to use more healthy models in the brand’s shoots after using plus size model Jennie Runk and Beyonce in their campaigns in 2013. These are just a few examples, and we are excited to report and blog about more as they happen. Bring on diversity and acceptance as the new standard for beauty and fashion. Of course, we can’t go without mentioning all the great campaigns Dove have released over the past 10 years, and Pantene’s latest viral video challenging the stereotypes and labels of women.

Amber, one of the featured models in the new Aerie campaign says “I think confidence is extremely sexy…women who own their bodies and are completely unapologetic for who they are as women and what they look like.”

Ok ladies what’s your verdict? Do you like the message behind this campaign?