Standing at 5’7 with a slender frame and defined features, Keira Knightley has dazzled on the red carpet since the early 2000s. The actress is known for her impeccable style, wearing classic, glamorous gowns from prestigious designers like Chanel, Nina Ricci, Valentino, Elie Saab, Marc Jacobs, and Erdem. Yet, her most recent photo shoot shifted the focus from who she was wearing to what she was not. In a risqué, black and white shoot with Patrick Demarchelier for the September issue of Interview magazine, Knightley wore only structured black pants and lace gloves.
So what’s the real reason behind the buzz of Knightley’s shoot? It wasn’t just the fact that Knightley posed topless, but the fact that she bared it all under the condition that no one was allowed to edit or alter her body in any way.
Knightley told the The Times UK, “It does feel important to say it really doesn’t matter what shape you are.”
She defended her controversial shoot by claiming, “women’s bodies are a battleground and photography is partly to blame. You need tremendous skill to be able to get a woman’s shape and make it look like it does in life, which is always beautiful. But our society is so photographic now, it becomes more difficult to see all of those different varieties of shape (The Times UK).
Knightley has been a victim of photo shop in the past. The starlet was surrounded by controversy after the release of the promotional poster for King Arthur film in 2004, on which her breast had been obviously enhanced.
On the Interview shoot, Knightley’s denies that it was, “a whole conceived thing.”. She did not mean for it to be an anti-photo shop campaign, and it just felt right in the moment.
There has been overwhelming support for Knightley on social media and within other publications, like Elle magazine. While some women feel that she still looks too stunningly above average for it to be an empowering movement, Knightley’s intentions were good and she took a stand against photo shop and the negative images that it spreads.
With or without editing, Knightley looks striking in her photos. In the words of her costar, Matthew Goode, “She couldn’t look bad if she tried.”