Target launches photoshop-free swimwear campaign featuring women with stretchmarks

Here's to real women's bodies!

(Target)

Considering normal women whose bodies wobble, have stretch-marks and generally aren’t re-touched will be buying and wearing swimsuits this year (as always), a campaign featuring women just like that shouldn’t be remarkable, and yet it is.

Target, the US discount store retailer, are making waves with their photoshop-free swimwear shots.

Entirely un-retouched, the campaign focusing on inclusivity features women with stretch-marks and not unnaturally smooth bodies that we’re so used to seeing.

(Target (Target)

Social media star Megan Batoon, professional skateboarder Lizzie Armanto, model and body activist Denise Bidot and TV host and model Kamie Crawford all star in the pictures.

Unsurprisingly, the pictures have largely been well received.

Not everyone is heaping praise on the brand though.

This isn’t the first time Target has launched a body-positive campaign - their 2015 swimwear ads featuring a diverse line-up of women of different shapes and sizes also won them praise.

A spokesperson for the brand said: “Target is committed to empowering women to feel confident in what they wear by offering a variety of style choices.

“It was important to us to use photography that represented their true beauty, without filters.”

However the brand previously courted controversy for photoshopping the women in their campaigns - in 2014, they were heavily criticised for creating a fake thigh-gap on one model.

Target's previous photoshop fail

But real women really do want to see real women - lingerie brand Aerie, for example, reported a 20 per cent rise in sales after they stopped photoshopping their ads in 2015.

Here's to seeing women who actually look like us.