Too COOL for POOL
STUNNING SWIMWEAR YOU WON’T WANT TO GET WET. BY EMMA JOHNSON
AIRBRUSHING STRETCHES THE TRUTH
WE NEED to talk about stretchmarks. Why? Because everyone is. Usually a topic confined to articles about pregnancy, this week stretchmarks became headline news after eagle-eyed shoppers spotted that an online retailer had stopped airbrushing them off the bodies of its swimwear models.
Because – shock horror! – even leggy, size eight models can have stretchmarks.
People took to social media to praise Asos.com for the move, commending it for offering a ‘body positive’ message, adding that the models looked ‘amazing’.
Quite right too. Because as these images prove, like freckles, cellulite or crow’s feet, stretchmarks are a fact of life with research suggesting that more than three quarters of women have them.
And, while pregnancy is a key cause of the white, red or silver marks, the truth of the matter is that countless women (and some men for that matter – especially tall ones) will get them whether or not they have had a baby. Nor are they just an issue for yo-yo dieters.
I am child-free but have had stretchmarks ever since women’s curves decided to force themselves out on to the hips and bottom (although sadly never the boobs) of my girl’s body pretty much overnight.
And as I have discovered over the past two decades or so, there is little you can do about the flippin’ things.
Yes there are creams, lotions and potions but I have never seen one make a jot of difference. If you’ve got the cash, laser treatment is said to help, but surely life is too short to spend it face down on a bed having your backside zapped. Unless your surname happens to be Kardashian.
Asos is not alone in believing that stretchmarks should be accepted rather than something that should be airbrushed under the carpet.
Earlier this year the singer Kendrick Lamar rapped about wanting to see a ‘natural a** with some stretchmarks’ on his track Humble, while Chrissy Teigen and Ashley Graham – a pair of game changers in the modelling world – have both shared photos of theirs on social media.
Having spent the past few weeks viewing Barbie-like bottoms, impossible thigh gaps and legs smoother than James Bond in my own mission to buy a bikini online, I say three cheers to Asos for keeping it real. FROM the bottom to the top and the finest of the fashion world have been over in Paris this week for the haute couture shows, where as usual Chanel was the big draw.
The likes of Kristen Stewart, Julianne Moore, Katy Perry, Tilda Swinton and Gemma Arterton all bagged front row seats.
Creative director Karl Lagerfeld has never been one for restraint at these events and this one was no different as the Kaiser recreated France’s most famous landmark inside the city’s Grand Palais venue.
Talk about giving fashion fans an Eiffel.