Aerie Lingerie Campaign Uses Unretouched Photos Of Women

Lingerie store Aerie, American Eagle’s little sister, has launched Aerie Real, a Spring 2014 ad campaign that only contains unretouched photos of real women.

So, what is Aerie and what are they doing exactly?

Aerie, American Eagle’s sister store, is a lingerie and apparel brand that mainly sells to girls aged 15 to 21. It is pretty rare nowadays to see a brand do what Aerie is doing: launch a lingerie campaign using unretouched photos of real women.

For its Spring 2014 ad campaign, Aerie decided to keep every little stretch mark, tattoo, and tummy that would normally be seen as an ‘imperfection’ by other brands and magazines.

Aerie style and fit expert Jenny Altman explained to ABC News:

We left everything: beauty marks, tattoos. It’s a selling point because our customers represent this great demographic and they don’t get to see what girls their age really look like.

So what do these women look like, you ask? Let’s take a look:

 

Another remarkable development is that on its website, Aerie shows you women who actually have the bra size of the bra they are wearing. This may sound odd but most women you see wearing a DD in other lingerie brand ads or webshop photos don’t actually have that cup size.

Aerie is also encouraging its customers to share photos of their real selves accompanied by the hashtag #AerieREAL, on Instagram and Twitter. Golden move, I say.

My Opinion

Aerie’s customers mostly consist of teenage girls and college students, and that is exactly why this campaign is a very positive development.

Girls aged 15 to 21 are still highly influenced by the images of females they see in the media. Of course photoshopped women don’t exist in real life, and showing these girls and young women that could help them develop a better and healthier outlook on their own bodies.

I think Aerie is definitely taking a step in the right direction, and I’m curious to see how this development will evolve in the future. Hopefully we will get to see more of these campaigns!

Plus, that tagline… The real you is sexy! Can’t get any better and more truthful than that.

What About You?

What do you think of this campaign? Beautiful women, or rather have supermodels? Tell us in the comments below!

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About The Author
Marion aan ‘t Goor is a Social Media Consultant at ICON&Co. You can connect with Marion via Twitter and LinkedIn.