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Victoria's Secret 'Perfect Body' Ad Not So Perfect?

Tanya Mardirossian |
November 3, 2014 | 10:37 a.m. PST

Staff Reporter

"Body" ad (Twitter/CosmopolitanUK)
"Body" ad (Twitter/CosmopolitanUK)
Victoria’s Secret released its new “Body” line of push-up bras, and people aren’t thrilled about the slogan “The Perfect ‘Body’” in the U.K. The slogan caused such a fuss that people are petitioning against it, and insist that the lingerie company apologizes for the body-shaming ad. 

We'd love to see some celebrity input in opposition to the ad who's famous in both the U.K. and the U.S. (Emma Watson maybe?)

READ MOREEmma Watson: The Next Target For Social Change

If people in the U.K. are taking this seriously, the U.S. is probably just as furious and willing to fight back against the campaign. 

No woman wants to hear about what her body should look like, especially when it’s coming from a company like Victoria’s Secret, which has skinny and fit models on magazine covers and TV commercials. They chose the model life as a career: a job that consists of eating healthy, exercising with a personal trainer, modeling and being in photoshoots. 

What people want to see in the ad (Twitter/bgbertrand)
What people want to see in the ad (Twitter/bgbertrand)
It’s not impossible for women to live this way—eating healthy and exercising to maintain good health and physicality, but the average lifestyle doesn’t call for working out with a trainer on a daily basis. We crave those midnight snacks and 500-calorie Starbucks drinks and foods along with the extra butter on the popcorn. Maybe, if there’s time between work, school and everything that happens in between, the time is reserved for a half-hour jog around the neighborhood. 

It could be that people are overreacting toward the whole incident. This is Victoria’s Secret we’re talking about—this sort of ad is kind of expected. We have already seen the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign competing with the lingerie company, having average sized women model for healthy skin rather than always showing what you’d see in a Victoria’s Secret catalog. This ad is more relatable, as it gives more of a realistic image of women. 

READ MORE: Celebrities On Body Image

Let’s face it: we want to see equality among all shapes and sizes, but it’s going to take some time and getting used to seeing plus-sized and curvy women on magazine covers for ads that aren’t strictly for those kinds of women. 

The company hasn’t commented about the situation (and certainly no apology yet), and looking at the big picture, we most likely won’t see Victoria’s Secret change their ad styles any time soon. 

Reach Staff Reporter Tanya Mardirossian here. Follow her on Twitter



 

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