Here’s what 18 different countries think the ‘ideal woman’s body’ looks like

The designers were told to make the woman in the photo more attractive to the people of their respective countries.

Inspired by Ester Honig’s powerful 2014 series, UK-based Internet medical service Superdrug Online Doctor commissioned marketing agency Fractl to task graphic designers from 18 different countries across the globe to Photoshop a woman based on their nation’s average beauty preferences. Everything from the model’s hair to her hips to her clothes were changed-proving that there is no universal beauty standards for women; however, it also proves that no culture is immune from the pressures to look “attractive”. Multiple designers are involved.

“The goal of this project is to better understand potentially unrealistic standards of beauty and to see how such pressures vary around the world”, Superdrug stated.

“Some designers in North, South, and Central American countries produced an exaggerated hourglass figure”, the site said.

China and Italy returned the thinnest Photoshopped figures (China’s had an estimated BMI of 17), while Spain returned the heaviest. “And the range of depictions found in our study appears to confirm this notion”.

And that’s exactly the contradiction explored in the project Perceptions of Perfection.