Guess what happens to profits when you stop airbrushing models?

An American fashion label has seen an increase in profits just months after announcing that it would stop airbrushing photographs of models for its lingerie line.

As Quartz reports, although American Eagle saw an overall loss in sales revenue in the second quarter of this year, its Aerie line alone saw a 9 per cent rise compared to a 2 per cent decrease in the same period last year.

In January this year, the line's "style and fit expert" Jenny Altman told ABC News that the company wanted to "show everything" including birth marks and tattoos.

They are still models, they're still gorgeous, they just look a little more like the rest of us.

We're hoping to break the mould... we hope by embracing this that real girls everywhere will start to embrace their own beauty.

• Jenny Altman, Aerie

It's not entirely clear if the increase in profits is directly correlated with the new strategy, but at least it does show that unrealistic portrayals of women aren't needed to sell clothes.

Other labels have followed a similar philosophy in the past, most notably British department store Debenhams who ditched airbrushing for its swimwear models in 2010 and for lingerie models a few years later.

The shop announced the new policy with a series of posters that showed the photo they would be using with the ways it could be doctored.

Last year, the Telegraph reported that the chain had acted in response to a number of studies that showed the self-esteem of school-aged children was being crushed by increasingly unattainable body portrayals of models and celebrities.

A report by the Schools Health Education Unit in 2012 found that 58 per cent of female pupils aged between 14 to 15 wanted to lose weight, and a quarter were skipping breakfast to avoid "piling on the pounds".

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