Men’s magazines aren’t generally known for fostering positive attitudes towards women, if at all. However, a recent study conducted by psychologists in the UK has revealed that most participants in the study could not readily distinguish comments made in popular men’s magazines from quotes from interviews with convicted rapists. Men between the ages of 18…
Read more
The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and “completely virtual,” the company has admitted. H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then “dresses” it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production. …
Read more
Christmas can prompt pretty ridiculous purchases (tis the silly season, after all). Even so, the concept of syringes and permanent marker on flabby body parts are not exactly festive imagery. Given that plastic surgery and anti-aging processes are actually pretty gory, what’s with their creeping into the market as a new Christmassy gift possibility? The…
Read more
You want your celebrities to have some brain power, right? Or at least have decent taste. Wear some Ray Bans, for instance, and a floral dress. Hold a Penguin Classic for when the need to read strikes, or carry some vinyl LPs in their second hand bike baskets… Well, the ‘famous tides’ turn all the…
Read more
My favourite subject at school? Photoshop. Okay, that may be a little misleading, but in between maths and basic geography, I got pretty good at enhancing digital photographs. It wasn’t that I took a class in it, per se. It’s just that over two digital graphics subjects and a work experience placement in the pictorial…
Read more
Despite being fully aware of the advertising industry and the clothing industry’s ways of manipulating the consumer, I am still sucked into certain advertising and clothing industry campaigns. For goodness sake, I just got an email from ASOS about 20% off and I clicked straight over without hesitating, just in case I found something, even…
Read more
The fashion industry is bored with its own air-brushed perfectionism. Now, gap-toothed models are all the rage, moving away from traditional ideals of beauty to celebrate the authentic and quirky. Open up a recent issue of Vogue, and you’re likely to see Georgia May Jagger, the full-lipped, goddess-haired daughter of Mick, flashing her gap-toothed smile….
Read more
I read Seth’s blog almost every day, and today he makes an interesting point about why businesses produce what they do and why they want us to buy their products. He uses film in his example, but I think this is also extremely relevant to magazines. The first reason is “me-centric” and explains that (commercial/mainstream)…
Read more
A place where you can tell businesses (and other people) what sucks about their product or service. Tell magazines how you feel about their use of too-skinny models. Tell cosmetics companies that you’re boycotting their products because they still test on animals. Business is sitting up and paying attention to social media. They want to…
Read more
Despite how we feel about advertising in general (and I’m not just talking about the objectionable, sexist, exploitative ads that are so prevalent in the media), we have included some ads on this blog and on our website to help us raise much needed funds to keep bringing you lip magazine in print. A free…
Read more
Late last year I blogged about the competition run by Dove so that real women could make ads for Dove about real women. The winner, 22-year-old Lindsay Miller from California, in her ad sings into a pink hairbrush and dances in the shower. “Thinking about beauty and what it means to me … and to…
Read more
Dove has shaken up the advertising world by creating ads that focus on “real women”. They are now launching a contest for real women, their consumers, to create their own ads. The winning ad will be shown at the Academy Awards in 2007. It will be interesting to see the “real woman” they select as…
Read more
We’ve been talking a lot about advertising lately: objecting to it, complaining about it, ignoring it, and wondering if we’re making a difference. I find advertising in general offensive. The very fact that it’s there, everywhere I look, invading my eye-space, detracting from the view of my surroundings. But occasionally an ad is clever, amusing…
Read more
Hi all, Please go to Erin Dolan’s website at http://www.donotbequiet.com to see the letter I wrote to James Boags regarding a tv ad that has me seeing red. You can view the actual ad at http://www.boags.com.au/files/00191-Advertising.asp Here’s the response my friend Judy received from Boags when she also protested the ad: “All advertising used in…
Read more
