Two years ago, the image below caught my eye. It was the advertisement in a bridal magazine for a collection of wedding gowns from the designer Reem Acra, which was being offered at the bridal section of Saks Jandel, a Washington DC store. I was the part-owner of a bridal salon at the time, so I did occasionally look at such magazines, in case you were wondering. So please indulge me and look at the picture, and react as you might normally before reading ahead.
I saw the picture for the first time, and my first reaction was to ask what, pray tell, the expression on the model's face was supposed to show. Really, having watched innumerable bridal scenes in my life, including the live one wherein I married my best girl, I expect that a girl on her wedding day is supposed to be happy as all get-out. Now, I confess that the cell-phone camera shot of a magazine photo may not exactly portray the expression on this model's face well, but trust me -- happy it ain't.
Let's face it; there are only two things one could infer from the expression on that girl's face that she is trying to say:
(1) I'm a captive in a photographer's basement and he's making me dress in this gown
(2) I need a cheeseburger so bad it hurts
So I have to ask the logical questions, and there are three:
(1) What was Reem Acra trying to portray, showing an obviously unhappy girl on her wedding day?
(2) What did the photographer ask the model to think of to get that expression?
(3) For lack of a better way to phrase it, why?
I really don't care that you're supposed to look at the dress, not the model; I'm a guy and I'm going to look at the model, however briefly. And here's what I see ... an obviously malnourished model in something like distress, except that she's dressed in a wedding gown. What in Heaven's name was Reem Acra trying to show? That girl is not happy, but they think brides are supposed to look at that picture and run to Saks Jandel to buy the gown, so that they can be ... what, unhappy? Malnourished?
Without getting too far into the whole anorexic-model in the size minus-2 dress thing, it does play a part, especially combined with the distressed expression. I seriously want to know what the image they were going for was, and I want to know, from women, why they think that picture would get them interested in pursuing a dress from either the manufacturer or the people involved in selling that image. I would love to have the photographer sitting across from me and tell me not only what he/she was going for and asked the model to express, but what he/she was told to project as an image for the dress.
I'll tell you right now, I don't like it. I don't like the depiction of women cowering away from the camera; I don't like the starving of models to get clothes to hang a particular way; I want brides to be happy and portrayed as such; and I seriously suspect some kind of not-too-subliminal message going on in this picture and I absolutely want to know what it is.
Because, friends, that poor girl needs a cheeseburger and I want to know why she doesn't have one.
Copyright 2014 by Robert Sutton
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