Images of models in womenswear advertisements targeting middle-aged women

This study analyzes the images of models in womenswear advertisements targeting women in their fifties. The goals of this study are: 1) to investigate beauty ideals for middle-aged women by analyzing models' look age, chronological age, wrinkles, gray hair, hair length, body type, and race; and 2) to explore how ageing is dealt with in advertisements by analyzing the range of bodies shown in advertisements, the color mode of photographs, and the clarity of models' figures in relation to models' look ages. A total of 155 printed advertisements from January 2012 to January 2017 from the brands Daks Ladies, Lebeige, Luciano Choi, PAT, and Zishen were selected for analysis. Womenswear brands targeting middle-aged women reinforce cultural ideals of female beauty that emphasize youth and slenderness. They do this by using thin and slender models, who most often appear to be in their twenties and thirties, and have hair longer than their shoulders. Brands with higher price ranges show a preference for Caucasian models, which reveals that a Caucasian identity is associated with sophistication. In addition, the bodies of models who appear to be in their forties and fifties were concealed by framing photographs mostly above the knees. Older models' features were also obscured via the use of black and white photography, strong lighting and contrast, and digital editing that blurred the boundaries between figures and their backgrounds. These decisions for how to represent models could result in negative self-esteem and a denial of the symptoms of ageing among middle-aged women.

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