Abercrombie is known for their fashionable clothes that are tight, for a specific body type and overpriced. Another thing they are known for are their ability to advertise said clothes with pictures of models that aren’t wearing anything. Don’t get me wrong, I love the pictures of half named guys with their twenty million pack abs, but it is demeaning to peoples perceptions of their bodies. “If I don’t fit into a size two like the model I am fat.” “If I can’t wear Abercrombie then something must be wrong with my body.” I mean people judge themselves on how models look, but a model is not the typical woman. A model is a costly human stick figure that is an undesirable and often unachievable-without drastic measures-standard.
The hype shouldn’t be believed, but the sex sells and so do the beautiful people that look like they are about to have it. Out image is based off of an idealized perception of an unrealistic person. We either have to be completely flat or look like a porn star with huge boobs, small waste and even bigger butt. I mean do guys really want to date a girl who has or looks like she has an eating disorder? Or bring someone home to Mom that looks like the girls in Playboy? No. they are taking out the girls that are naturally beautiful, that have flaws but are real.
The Epistemological Shift is huge in clothing advertising, especially with Abercrombie, even if the clothes are not on the models. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, meaning that images play a larger influence in our minds than words do. If you think about it, when you look at an advertisement you look at the clothes, the people and the atmosphere before you look at who designed what and where you can buy the clothing shown.
With the image playing such a role in our heads it is a dangerous game. There is an emotional responds that is triggered in our Limbic brain that says either that is cute, is something wrong with my body since I don’t look like that, or I need to do something in order to afford or fit into those clothes. It is an instinct, a responds that is uncontrollable. It is something that needs to be defeated. We cannot base ourselves-men or women-on the idealized perception of beauty, but instead start to base ourselves on what is the best that we can be and make that our goal, striving towards a more positive self image rather than the positive image of someone else.
http://www.abercrombie.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/home_10051_10901_-1
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