Nicole Kidman received two awards for News/Entertainment and Readers’ Choice. Nicole, currently in Hawaii with filming commitments, accepted her award via video. While Deborra-lee Furness nominated her mother to receive her award on her behalf.

High profile entrepreneur Naomi Simson won the Business category. While Simson, who founded experiential gift etailer RedBalloon was a worthy recipient, I’m betting InStyle didn’t look any further afield than their own girlie tastes, for nominees in this category.

Commenting on the awards, Kerrie McCallum, editor of InStyle, said: “The InStyle and Audi Women of Style Awards are the country’s premier awards evening recognising the efforts of outstanding women who not only display innovation, passion and perseverance in their field of expertise – but also play a special role in Australian culture today.”

A bold statement there from Kerrie McCallum. Since when did ONLY the achievements of celebrities and women who can afford to keep a publicist on retainer, matter? No wonder so many of our young people would rather model their behaviour on celebrities, than follow in the footsteps of women such as Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, the Australian scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine last year.

This is not to say that I think there was any intent on the part of InStyle magazine to deliberately ignore the achievements of so many Australian women who deserve equal recognition. Nope, like so many others who hand out these type of awards, InStyle magazine was just lazy. Why spend hours looking for more obscure references to greatness, when you can just come up with a couple of dozen names off the top of your head.

The full list of InStyle and Audi Women of Style Award winners reads like a who’s who of celebrities and high profile women:

News/Entertainment: Winner: Nicole Kidman
Shortlisted: Claudia Karvan and Jessica Rowe

Fashion: Winner: Kirrily Johnston
Shortlisted: Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke, Sass & Bide; and Nicky and Simone Zimmermann

Charity/Community: Winner: Deborah-lee Furness
Shortlisted: Rachel Ward and Catherine Freeman

Business: Winner: Naomi Simson (RedBalloon)
Shortlisted: Elle Macpherson and Kristina Karlsson

Arts/Culture: Joint winners: Del Kathryn Barton and Deborah Mailman
Shortlisted: Dr Anita Heiss

Lifestyle: Winner: Chui Lee Luk (Claudes)
Shortlisted: Saskia Beer and Terri Winter

Beauty: Winner: Sharon McGlinchey
Shortlisted: Shelley Barrett and Mandy Gray

Environment: Winner: Dr Tammie Matson
Shortlisted: Cate Faehrmann and Sidonie Carpenter

Design: Winner: Melinda Dodson
Shortlisted: Caroline Casey and Alena Smith

For the second year in a row, InStyle has wasted the opportunity to honour ‘real’ women of style – those who work every bit as hard as those honoured by the gossip mag, but who apparently lack one vital ingredient in the recipe for success – a publicist. So I think we can just dismiss InStyle’s award show as nothing more than a PR exercise for everyone involved. What do you think?

The airbrush-free June issue (on sale from May 13) is part of DOLLY’s “Heart Your Body” campaign, which encourages teenage girls to realise no-one is perfect and to celebrate their bodies, regardless of shape and size.

Miranda Kerr, Kate Ritchie, Natalie Bassingthwaighte and ROXY pro surfer, Laura Enever are just a few of the inspiring celebrities supporting the “Heart Your Body” campaign and letting girls know that friendship, happiness and confidence are way more important than the way they look.

“I think DOLLY’s ‘Heart Your Body campaign is a great idea – I’m really inspired about getting involved and hope to help in any way I can,” said Miranda Kerr. “Most people understand [images in magazines have been retouched] in theory, but still compare themselves to something that is not even real.”

Flicking through pages that are ‘airbrush-free zones’, readers can also expect to see fashion models and singing sensation Jessica Mauboy looking amazingly natural. In fact, the only images with any retouching are those already altered before being supplied to DOLLY.

There are also moving interviews with three girls who are recovering from eating disorders. DOLLY editor Gemma Crisp said: “Negative body image is at an all-time high in Australia and many people are blaming the media for using unrealistic, air-brushed images where so-called “flaws” like scars and pimples are nowhere to be seen.”

“To combat the pressure placed on young girls to look a particular way, we decided to ditch the airbrushing to show teenage girls the reality of what they’re constantly comparing themselves to.”

Almost 5,000 girls took part in an online body image survey conducted by DOLLY which asked them how they felt about their body, food and exercise. The survey showed that only 16 per cent were happy with their body.

Beauty brand Dove says they are delighted at the announcement made by Dolly magazine that the June issue of the leading teen magazine will be free from airbrushing.

“We know from research that 75% of global and 78% of Australian respondents, strongly agree that they wished the media did a better job of portraying women of diverse physical attractivenessage, shape, and size, therefore we applaud the step taken by Dolly magazine with the launch of its airbrush free issue,” said Lauren Nye from Dove.

Source: ACP Magazines