Posh Spice sets retoucher challenge in Armani ad

Be careful strange illustrated woman
Retouching is an evil lie say the Lib Dems. Apparently the sight of perfect, spotless bodies without texture or tone in magazines makes spotty overweight teenagers want to look like an illustration too. Indeed the party says retouching on models should carry a disclaimer.
That may be but I’m not sure Victoria Beckham would want to see a retouching ban after her latest ad for Emporio Armani. This is a girl who needs retouching but not necessarily to have her face reshaped, her body stretched or her skin transformed into a lifeless sheen - although everything helps.
The Armarni shots the latest in the series of highly stylised four-colour black and white ads which feature her and her husband in a collection of stupid, uncomfortable and rather dangerous poses. To be honest we’ve written about the Armani ads tons of times before so all I’m going to say is the Paul Daniels version was better, which should say a lot more.
This latest ad follows the same pattern as all the others and has her nonchalantly treading, in high heels, across a ladder, which is in the air. Either an issue for health and safety or a job for Mr Retoucher.
Now this is where I’d like to see a ban on retouching come in because that would mean she would have to climb up on that ladder herself. Ok, the rules probably wouldn’t go that far but it’s a nice thought. I imagine them saying: “You want your £12m, get on the ladder and don’t even think about taking those boots off.”
Of course the retouching goes on. I happen to know a retoucher who spent some time working on the Spice Girls and said she did more than a little work on Posh’s skin and blotches on Geri Halliwell’s arms. Other standard retouching includes removing stray pubes and see-through nips from underwear ads — “so what did you do at the office today dear” – to smoothing manky chewed nails and even swapping heads.
Clearly this ad has well and truly been through the Photoshop wringer. Lib Dem spokeswoman for Women Jo Swinson thinks so too and says there should be a warning on the ad saying this. But firstly, although its crap, it is the style of the ad. It’s supposed to look like that. But lastly, surely people know Posh wasn’t crawling over that ladder, don’t they?

Ashutosh Pratap Singh
PGDM 3rd Sem.