ModCloth Wants Retailers To Get Real

Online clothing retailer, ModCloth, has been stepping up its efforts recently to lobby for passage of H.R. 4445, a bill that would allow the Federal Trade Commission to develop regulations and guidelines over the use of Photoshop and other image-altering programs in advertising.

“Did you know that by the time a girl reaches the age of 17, she has seen over 250,000 ads? The vast majority of those ads are airbrushed and altered to create an ideal body image that is unrealistic,” ModCloth posted on its blog last week. “And 78 percent of those same girls surveyed also said they were unhappy with their bodies. Coincidence? We think not.”

The blog post also contained a photo of ModCloth co-founder and CCO Susan Gregg Koger speaking with ‪Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of the sponsors of the bill, and urged readers to write to their respective member of Congress asking them to support the bill. ModCloth even linked to a pre-written letter by the Representation Project that has been signed and sent to legislators nearly 3,000 times, according to its website.

ModCloth’s anti-Photoshop stance has always been something of a cause célèbre for the online retailer, who in 2014 was the first to sign a pledge to not make any post-production changes to any of its models or images. The company also boasts that it portrays women in an “honest and realistic way” and often hires its models from its own costumer base for a more “authentic” look.

“Portraying women in an honest and realistic way is essential to fulfilling our brand purpose of empowering women to be the best version of themselves,” Kroger wrote in the blog post. “It demonstrates to young women that measurements are a fact, not a judgment. We want to lend our voice and the support of the ModCloth community to this movement to stop the extreme and harmful Photoshopping of women in advertisements.”