Australian Meaghan Kausman is the latest model to lash out against the Photoshop-crazed fashion industry after an image of her in a bikini was altered against her wishes.
Kausman posted the original photo on Instagram, expressing her outrage over Fella Swim's decision to shave several sizes off of her healthy 8 without her knowledge.
“I saw that they had practically cut me in half. So it was pretty mind-blowing,” said Kausman. “I think my jaw dropped for about 5 minutes. I was really, really taken aback that they felt the need to do that and that they could take the creative licence to alter it because of what they thought would fit into their cultural ideal of what beautiful was.”
Kausman is one in a growing line of personalities putting pressure on a warped industry to change its ways and promote a realistic body image. Swimsuits, especially, are a sore point for many women who feel so hideously self-conscious they don't even dare to bare on the beach. Women are finally sending the message to retailers that they want to feel good in their skin. But fashion retailers and mags are slow on the uptake.
Following a much-publicized petition, Seventeen committed to depicting more so-called “real girls” in its pages. For its part, Fella issued a shamed-faced apology to Kausman, and removed her image from its site.
It seems to me (caveat: as someone with no modelling experience whatsoever) that such drastic Photoshopping of a model's likeness—without her express prior consent—should be in direct violation of her contract. That may be one way to hold these companies accountable for their damaging handiwork.
And, hopefully, shoppers will put paid to businesses that continue to perpetuate and manipulate unhealthy ideals.
You tell me: are fashion photographers taking their "creative licence" too far? Should models be able to vet images of themselves?
Lorde won us over with this tweet.
Oh, you cleaned your room without me asking—said no parent in the history of forever. One dad clearly was getting nowhere nagging his teenagers to do basic chores at home. So he decided to think out of the box by getting his kids to watch him on the box. (This is where we're at, people, sad but totally true. If you want to talk to your teens, you'll have to do it via social media.)
In the first of what promises to be a brilliant series of 'instructional' videos, the British father covers the very sophisticated process of changing a toilet roll. The adventurous out there, he says, may wish to include a further step. But that may too much.
If his kids didn't heed the message and start pulling their weight around the house, this dad threatened to share the video to a wider audience.
“They said to go ahead as I wasn’t funny and no one would be interested.”
Clearly a lot of people out there require this kind of expertise, as the step-by-step footage has been viewed some 200,000 times in a matter of days—presumably by everyone but the man's own slacker progeny.
James and Beth, for the record, we're kinda glad you didn't listen...
Now, if only someone would make a series for husbands. The first video would (obviously) be entitled "How to Lower the Toilet Seat After You Pee," interspersed with the latest hockey scores with future editions on "How to Recycle Empty Beer Cans" and "How to Put Dirty Socks in Laundry."
This mom found an ingenious way to get her kids to behave better and do their chores.
From one coast to another, Canada is handling back-to-school very differently. While parents in British Columbia are tearing out their hair over the ongoing teachers' strike, those in Quebec are rejoicing over a pilot program that will see homework scrapped for an entire year.
What? No homework? Are they taking a tip from Sharon's no-homework handbook? The seemingly harebrained scheme is being rolled out, paradoxically, to boost grades in the province. And yet doing away with homework isn't such a novel concept—it's happened in Germany and France, and a school in Barrie, Ont., went light on its students back in 2008.
Did the Barrie kids fall apart academically? Quite the opposite. The dearth of homework actually resulted in improved performance (not to mention less frazzled, wine-addled parents).
The kids in grades one through six at College de Saint-Ambroise will still have some reading and study assignments, but according to Jonquiere School Board spokesperson, Marie-Eve Desrosiers, they won't be stuck wading through "four pages of math problems."
And it's not just kids who are sick and tired of homework. Cue the collective sigh of relief from parents who, after prolonged whining, wind up doing said math problems to put everyone out of their misery.
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