Women, Marks and Spencer's wants to talk to you. You real women I mean. They want your money and in exchange they will give you all a dress to share – Travelling Pants Sisterhood style -- and shape you all into better women.
Yeah last month M&S announced it had dropped Twiggy and Myleene et al in favour of the Real Women ad campaign bandwagon. "The campaign features a selection of models representing a range of ages and sizes which mirror M&S' broad customer base." The new advert, with the strapline: 'For Every Woman You Are' featured women of various ages and sizes all wearing the same dress (OK not the same dress as it were, they had one each) reflecting the way of the high street. Lots of women of all shapes and sizes living the Western nightmare of having to pretend not to notice someone across the road has the same top on. That's Real Women.
Yeah last month M&S announced it had dropped Twiggy and Myleene et al in favour of the Real Women ad campaign bandwagon. "The campaign features a selection of models representing a range of ages and sizes which mirror M&S' broad customer base." The new advert, with the strapline: 'For Every Woman You Are' featured women of various ages and sizes all wearing the same dress (OK not the same dress as it were, they had one each) reflecting the way of the high street. Lots of women of all shapes and sizes living the Western nightmare of having to pretend not to notice someone across the road has the same top on. That's Real Women.
But what is a real woman? According to past Twitter hashtags and Facebook groups real women have curves. Any angular women – well I suppose if you've been feeling a little invisible lately now you know why, you're simply not real. No 'positive message' campaign for you.
As it happens M&S have taken the term 'real women' to mean attractive women of varying sizes and heights. The adverts feature women in this campaign with ages ranging from 20 to 57 and their sizes go from 8 to 16. So far, so M&S customer base. But M&S knows all this embracing of Real Women of different shapes and sizes can only go so far. In fact it needs to be nipped at the waist.
Which is why they have launched as part of their 'For every woman you are' campaign a range of shapewear. Yesterday morning we tweeted our perplexedness.
As it happens M&S have taken the term 'real women' to mean attractive women of varying sizes and heights. The adverts feature women in this campaign with ages ranging from 20 to 57 and their sizes go from 8 to 16. So far, so M&S customer base. But M&S knows all this embracing of Real Women of different shapes and sizes can only go so far. In fact it needs to be nipped at the waist.
Which is why they have launched as part of their 'For every woman you are' campaign a range of shapewear. Yesterday morning we tweeted our perplexedness.
One of our favourite twitterers asked us what shapewear was. We explained it was underwear used to smooth out and suck in the parts of your body people like Trinny and Susannah might describe as 'naughty bits of wobble'. 'Oh, I call that torturewear' our curious tweeter replied. Which I suppose is pretty accurate. Anything that requires breath to be held and feats of strength to get on probably does deserve to be called torturewear.
You'll note in the photo of these Real Women in said torturewear that none of them are sitting down. This is not simply a question of displaying the products, sitting and eating is an impossibility. Those women aren't slouching, they're contorted.
Quite why a campaign aimed at creating positivity about the diversity of shapes human women come in involves shapewear is not really clear. The Daily mail feature helpfully tags all the women with their age, size and what device they are wearing, with names such as 'cincher knicker' this shapewear pulls no punches. No hiding a 'naughty little wobble' here, a Magic Waist pant is required.
I suppose we can conclude: curvy, thin, tall or short we're all the wrong shape. Fortunately there's a massive pair of cincher pants waiting to shape us real women in to the 'every woman' M&S would like us to be. And that's how they will get us all into the same dress.
Squeamish Kate
Related Post
Think You're Real? Ann Summers will be the judge
You'll note in the photo of these Real Women in said torturewear that none of them are sitting down. This is not simply a question of displaying the products, sitting and eating is an impossibility. Those women aren't slouching, they're contorted.
Quite why a campaign aimed at creating positivity about the diversity of shapes human women come in involves shapewear is not really clear. The Daily mail feature helpfully tags all the women with their age, size and what device they are wearing, with names such as 'cincher knicker' this shapewear pulls no punches. No hiding a 'naughty little wobble' here, a Magic Waist pant is required.
I suppose we can conclude: curvy, thin, tall or short we're all the wrong shape. Fortunately there's a massive pair of cincher pants waiting to shape us real women in to the 'every woman' M&S would like us to be. And that's how they will get us all into the same dress.
Squeamish Kate
Related Post
Think You're Real? Ann Summers will be the judge
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