Superdrug, a UK-based pharmacy, created a campaign called ‘Perceptions of Perfection’ to find out how the perception of beauty changes from country to country.
An image of a woman’s body was sent to designers in 18 different countries. The designers were told to touch up the image to make the woman look more attractive to people in their country.
While it might be perceived as deceitful to use image manipulation to alter the way a model looks, that’s not to say that all magazines – or countries – are changing these images in the same way.
These were the results.
Original
1. Argentina
2. China
3. Columbia
4. Egypt
5. Italy
6. Mexico
7. Netherlands
8. Peru
9. Philipines
10. Romania
11. Serbia
12. South Africa
13. Spain
14. Syria
15. USA
16. UK
17. Ukraine
18. Venezuela
While we live in a globalised world, it’s clear from these images that ideas of beauty still change from country to country.
And while some people are happy to perpetuate the unrealistic standards set by the fashion industry, others are determined to change the face of beauty altogether. Like this eighteen-year-old model with down syndrome who plans to take the fashion world by storm.