Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty: Pascal Dangin And Aesthetics

Selva-Real women in Hong Kong?

“Real” beauty in Dove’s opinion is distorted by commercial advertising and high-end fashion magazines.  Most models are already known for their ideal looks, but after the photo shoots, people like Pascal Dangin re-touch, cut-out, stylize, and alter them. 

This kind of thing, Dove claims, presents an impossibly narrow ideal.  It creates ”self-limiting” norm for impressionable young girls. They’ve even created a self-esteem fund.

In the current New Yorker, Dangin admits to having worked for Dove, applying some of his techniques (with heavy use of mathematics and computer graphics) to touch-up their photos.  You know the kind.

Another Dove photo here.  

Regardless of his motives, Dangin considers himself an artist and what he does a pursuit of aesthetics.

So, as for Dove, sooner or later the demands of the market and the commercial will catch up with their own idealism apparently…

As for Dangin, it’s surprising why he wasn’t an architect or software designer…some field where the pursuit of beauty through mathematical form isn’t directly applied to fashion, or a woman’s desire to be beautiful…

Is it a French thing?

See Also:  More On Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty