Aerie launched its “Real” campaign featuring unretouched photos in 2014.
The campaign, commonly styled as #AerieREAL or “Aerie Real,” began with Aerie’s spring 2014 advertising for lingerie and related apparel. Instead of digitally retouching models’ bodies, the brand promoted images that left visible features such as tattoos, stretch marks and natural body contours intact. Its message challenged the heavily edited beauty standards common in fashion advertising.
Aerie is American Eagle Outfitters’ intimates and lifestyle brand, so the campaign is sometimes incorrectly described as an American Eagle clothing campaign. It was Aerie that made the unretouched-photo pledge, although American Eagle’s corporate support and branding connected the initiative to the larger company.
The campaign continued beyond its initial launch. Later AerieREAL promotions emphasized body confidence, diverse representation and social-media participation, including unretouched selfies. Models and spokespeople such as Iskra Lawrence and Barbie Ferreira helped keep the campaign prominent in subsequent years, but those later appearances do not change the original launch year.