
Australians might not know Norwegian-born model Sylvia Flote by name, but her baby bump is currently attracting international media attention.
This week, 36-year-old Flote, who is expecting her first child with fiancée Sigmund Oakeshott, criticised some online retailers’ use of pregnancy bump prosthetics to promote their maternity fashion – instead of using pregnant models, such as herself.
“Surprisingly, many do not know the majority of models modelling pregnancy clothing are actually girls with a fake bump attached,” Flote tells Mamamia.
“I modelled pregnancy clothing like that once. At the time, I thought little of it, and treated it as a novelty even, but now finding myself pregnant and experiencing how my body changes, I’ve been reflecting on the ethical aspect of it all.”
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It’s the ethics of online stores ASOS and Boohoo that Flote has directly questioned, because, as she claims, they are being dishonest with their customers.
“If companies won’t put in the extra work it requires to research and source actual pregnant women to model their products, they should at the very least include a disclaimer letting the customer know this is an image of a regular model wearing a fake bump,” Flote says.
Top Comments
Hardly any model represents reality, though. Not sure why pregnancy shoots need a disclaimer to remind women that they are showing an unrealistic, unhealthy perspective of women's bodies, when non-pregnant models are not labelled with similar disclaimers. "This model is wearing a pregnancy prosthesis" is fine. But then, shouldn't we also be adopting the same approach to other models? "This model hasn't eaten a square meal in a week and has a cocaine habit"? "This model is naturally thin and has a fast metabolism, but has an eating disorder too"... etc etc