Helena Bonham Carter's Vogue Cover: If I Could Turn Back Time
Actress Helena Bonham Carter revels in playing unattractive roles, so the July cover of British Vogue was a bit of a shock. Posing for the magazine's "Ageless Style" issue, the forty-seven year old actress looks more like a porcelain doll than a flesh-and-blood human. Not that it was her choice to wield the retouching scalpel with the subtlety of a lawnmower.
Related: Teen Vogue Snubs Anti Photo Retouch Activists
Although it's perplexing that the magazine would so thoroughly alter the already-gorgeous face of a woman who is perfectly comfortable in parts such as the shrill and stunted Queen of Hearts in 'Alice in Wonderland' or bawdy innkeeper's wife in 'Les Mis,' what's really ironic is the edition's theme.
Doesn't "Ageless Style" mean we can be hip, beautiful, and chic at any stage of our lives? Not to the editors of Vogue. By stripping at least a couple of decades off this talented and stunning mother of two, the message is that, by whatever means necessary, we should strive to appear as young as possible-preferably teenaged.
Related: H&M Plus Size Model Puts Fame to Good Use
The fashion industry has made some progress lately by banning the use of runway models who appear to suffer from an eating disorder or those who are under sixteen, and a few magazines have featured plus size models on their covers. Normal ageing, however, is treated like a nasty and communicable disease. "Does My Wardrobe Show My Age?" frets one of the issue's cover stories. "Facing the Years: A Fashion Genius Goes in Search of a Beauty Solution" proclaims another with the seriousness of a scientist on a quest for a cancer cure. Year after year, the rest of us ineluctably grow older; it's time the fashion world grew up, too.
