For Allure, by Kristen Bateman.
There’s a quiet revolution happening in fashion right now. Designers and major brands are opting to feature real women — customers included — in ads, catalogs, and even at New York fashion week presentations.
This summer, lingerie brand Aerie recruited 40 women, consisting of staff members, designers, bloggers, and customers, to star in an unretouched ad campaign. J.Crew took a similar approach to its NYFW presentation last month, casting nonmodel friends of the brand, staffers, and even journalists to model the collection. Last month, Raquel Allegra joined forces with Assembly New York to present its fashion show in the form of a basketball game. The models? A group of women basketball players, none with professional modeling experience.
Fashion brand Free People is also getting in on the modern approach. For the brand’s November catalog, it cast six real, nonmodel customers to sport the label’s new beauty & wellness line. Kristin Henry, Courtney Halverson, Alissa Castleton, Michelle Collins, and Katerina Miras each have their own portraits, highlighting their favorite beauty feature — whether that be their eyes, lips, or cheekbones. The products included range from the matte lipstick to the resin incense kit.
Free People’s art director, Lauren Cohan, told Allure, “For our November catalog, we wanted to dedicate a special section to our lovely FP Me customers and celebrate their natural beauty. We're so inspired by the spirit of the photos that they post and felt it was essential to include that feeling in the campaign.” In 2013, Free People launched FP Me, its own social community, which allows users to upload photos of their own #OOTD.
While Free People isn’t the first brand to feature nonmodels, it’s refreshing to see fashion labels finally showing more relatable examples in their ads. What all of them have in common is that the imagery typically ends up being much more diverse than the usual star-studded model campaign. It’s another step to making fashion and beauty more inclusive, and that’s something we can all get behind.
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