Swap the Neck Swap the Neck!

Do you think the masses who watched Catherine Elizabeth walk up the isle thought "Geez that Princess has let herself go, she would be a such a catch for William if she lost a few Kegs "?



Yeah me neither.



Obviously the idiot who runs the magazine Grazia did. The bride got the cover shot but only after she was photo shopped to get rid of much of her (already tiny) waist.

I am going to embarrass myself here ... until about 5 years ago I had never even heard of photo shopping /digitally altering (yeah I don't get out much). I really thought that celebrities and 'stars' looked that good. I thought they had great genes and a lot of luck and good fitness trainers whilst having none of the normal imperfections I (and most peeps) was blessed with.


Altering images is pretty much standard for all advertisers and magazines now and it's a sad indictment of how people (us!) are represented in the media.

She looks her age, no big deal. She made Guy Richie get the chop, super shocking (lunatic) big deal.

Props to this K sis (sorry I have no clue who is who) who set the record straight about how much altering her imaged had when it appeared on a magazine cover. She had just had a baby and looked gorgeous ... obviously not gorgeous enough to be shown to the general public.

The altered cover of Grazia made me think of the movie The September Issue which is a great fly on the wall documentary about the magazine Vogue.

The movies focus is Anna Wintour the Editor of Vogue (who needs a good feed and or a warm jacket) and the decisions she makes to get the highest selling edition of the magazine out.

Its fascinating and Grace Coddington pretty much steals the movie. She is the Creative Director and her 'work' is just gorgeous.


Grace's work is pictures and they all look like pieces of art and that pretty much sums up how the staff see most of the images that make it into the mag. Beautiful pieces of art that should be altered to make look as stunning as possible.

Enter Sienna Miller the Cover Girl for the September edition. Sienna is the subject of some very average i.e. normal pictures that are then altered by the art director. Her teeth are whitened, her hair is smoothed, all lines are erased and her neck gets the chop. In the end the photo that runs is an amalgamation of shots taken at the photo shoot. One wonders why Sienna had to go to Rome and actually stand in the shot when it all could have been put together in the art directors photo shop app.

I like looking at beautiful pictures.

I just don't like being sold a lie. I HATE that my 11 year old feels her stomach has "too many rolls" because authentic representation of girls and women in the media is almost non existent. I despair that new mothers feel like failures if they don't look like (insert celebrities name here) 2 weeks after giving birth.

I tell my kids all the time that images are altered (Even the picture of footballers etc that Riley looks at in sports magazines are doctored) to get rid of normal looking bits that EVERYBODY has. I do this because I don't want them to look at their own bodies and feel sub par.

I think that the government should make publishers label all images that have been altered so we as a society can get a real handle on just what it is to look "normal".

Rant over and Grazia ... you are a pack of tools.