On Friday, November 21, the Pretty in Pink group went and met with the

The Pretty in Pink Group standing with Ms. Martha Brooks

Ms. Martha Brooks speaking with us in the conference room.

Executive Creative Director of, L’Oréal Paris, the beauty and cosmetics company, Martha Brooks. When you step into L’Oréal’s headquarters, you notice right away all the previous works they did for recent magazines posted up on the wall. This this instantly gives you a feel and puts into perspective the amount of work these companies have to do for one season of magazines. While walking down the line of designers and creators the group and I got to really see the process of making these displays. Now, in this moment, take a minute to imagine those ads for make-up companies you see and pass by every day. In order to make that one advertisement it takes many stages, and they always have to be aware of all types of variables. Yet, when looking around at the people hard at work, you can see that everybody has a purpose and contributes to a main goal, whatever it may be at the time, and it is amazing to see everyone working in unity and understanding.

Soon, my group and I settled down into a conference room with Ms. Martha Brooks and asked her questions about the advertising industry and how women were portrayed through it. When asking her a question about the influence these advertisements have on people, Ms. Brooks replies comically, “We have a joke in advertising; Our job is to convince you to buy things you don’t need, with money you don’t have, to impress people you don’t like.”. Yet, if you think about it, what she states is true. When you look at advertisements from companies like L’Oréal or even Maybelline you see these gorgeous girls on the ad and you tend to think, as Ms. Brooks promptly stats, “If you make somebody look perfect, how am I supposed to feel anyway but imperfect?”. So you see these girls and you try to be like them doing everything you can, and that object they are modeling for becomes an object of desire, which in the advertising industry is the goal of their work. But this is where are groups goal comes in. We believe that young women and young’s girls have to become more strong and accept their bodies and try not to associate your entire view of beauty with those images you see on TV or magazines. One thing Ms. Martha Brooks stated that seemed really powerful and meaningful to me was, “You’re a beautiful representation on how you want to look versus trying to fit yourself into somebody else’s image.”.