Fashion 101: Over-manipulated magazine covers?
What constitutes a good cover girl? Based from my over-a-decade-old magazine collection, she has to be attractive. She doesn’t necessarily have to be pretty because everything can be enhanced with a swish of a brush. We’re lucky that over the years, not only have local magazines aided in the evolution of society’s common viewpoint for beauty, they also paved the way for non-model cover girls. Reviewing international fashion history, Anna Wintour made it okay for celebrities and non-zero body sizes to grace the cover of American Vogue. Who dares cross the most influential fashion magazine?
Our local leading fashion magazines started the year with controversial covers featuring very powerful women. International hit-maker Charice and pound-for-pound Manny Pacquiao’s first lady Jinkee grace the covers of Preview and Mega respectively. In the moment and well talked about, yes and yes. Emphasized cheekbones, noseline, jawline— check, check, check. The 2 magazines have been around for quite some time now. Both magazines continuously outwit each other when it comes to coming up with good editorials and features which is beneficial for us because we only get the best in each issue we bank on. They’ve created bonds with a lot of women; I’m pretty sure they know the standards for print manipulation.
I’m not quite sure why people are making a big fuss over the “Photoshopped” covers. Everyone does it, and I don’t see the overuse of the application in either of the photos. Sure, I didn’t recognize Jinkee right away but isn’t that how magazine covers almost always are? Sometimes I think people tend to overanalyze things especially when they’re not adept to a certain topic, just to have a “say”. Before you succumb to Twitter trends, it would be best to consider the following:
Photographer. Let’s not fully rely on Photoshop. Isn’t it possible that the photographers were well-trained? Think mad skills, man.
Lighting. Lighting is a big part of shoots. Strong light makes skin look flawless. It should do work, because it’s not easy being under it! Reflectors alone can help a lot in removing those dark eye circles and blemishes.
Makeup artistry. I’m a makeup artist. I know how hard and tricky concealing blemishes can get without looking like a freezing corpse. Contouring takes a lot of mad skills, too. It takes practice and even formal education. Take it from model-MUA Bianca Valerio, author of Face to Face. The book cover alone is a testimony that makeup does so much.
This is coming from a point of view of a concerned 20-year old Multimedia Arts student who reads a fashion magazine like it’s Physics, and has worked for many photo shoots as a photographer, makeup artist, stylist and even as an over-photoshopped model.
(c) Fashion Firewoman
