Bikini designer who morphed photos to look 'curvy' slams critics for not holding 'fake skinny photos' to same standard
After receiving considerable backlash over her photoshopped bikini picture, in which she made herself look curvier than she is, bikini designer Karina Irby finally opened up about why she had chosen to edit her photo.
In an interview with Daily Mail Australia, the founder of Moana Bikini admitted that there was a purpose behind her choice to photoshop herself to look fatter. She explained that her goal was to call out women who tamper with their photos and selfies to make themselves look thinner or smoothen out the cellulite to appear flawless.
"I was communicating that it's so ridiculous that girls that may be considered 'curvy' or 'bigger' than average have to put up with judgment on a daily basis, both online and in-person," Irby told the news outlet. "But... it's entirely okay for individuals (or brands) to over-edit - to a stupid extent - themselves to be so skinny and obviously fake - but this is totally normal, smiled upon and rewarded. I am truly sorry if I offended anyone."
The criticisms ranged from lashing out at her for trying to appear curvaceous to defaming her brand for not carrying the "average woman" size.
"It's not ok for this to be happening. For her to think she can just slip into a large body when she feels like it without suffering any of the fatphobic consequences that follow. Straight up about to rip my hair out with how frustrating this is," one critic said, while a second one wrote, "For someone who cr**s on about body positivity every post but doesn't go past the standard size 12/L and hasn't for years. As a fat b***h myself, I find this extremely stupid. How can she be trying to talk to such a big audience when she doesn't carry the average woman's size."
Although she did not regret posting the altered image, Irby did end up deleting the picture after the barrage of criticism. "I noticed so much love on my recent post but also a whole lot of hate. I did expect some hate, but I am not in the business of offending people, so I removed the post to remove the risk of further offense," she said.
"If anything, however, the amount of noise that post made and how many people took it in entirely the wrong way only goes to further my point about the double standards."
She added that all her "unrealistic size 18" photo did was highlight the hypocrisy among people who turned a blind eye to photos where the individual was technologically modified to look thinner but took issue with her even though she attempted to depict a "real" woman's body.
"All bodies are beautiful, plain and simple. I thought it would be interesting to test the boundaries and see how many people engaged with that image when compared to their daily feed of fakeness, over-editing and downright fraud - which they eat up quite happily. And, as it turns out, everyone is okay with the rest of the world faking skinny, but they still aren't ready to deal with someone who looks 'real'," she said.