Answer - Hi Jen,

Thanks so much for your honest pinboard comment. I do take your point about wishing to see more "real women" modelling products, however, the problem with that is, what's "real"? I'm in my early 30s and personally weighed 115 lbs before I got pregnant and I'm certainly not anorexic. The rest of the BE team are early 20s to early 30s and none of us are overweight. Our customers range from 20 year olds to 60 year olds. Some of the 60 year olds are more uber-fashionable than the 20 year olds. We try not to conform to stereotypes and just choose the models we like.

The models that we are use are actually very healthy and not at all anorexic and we suppose that they would be quite upset and offended by such a remark. As for whether we are hypocritical, I absolutely hate to see stick-thin, sickly looking models on the catwalk with their bones on display and we would never choose such a model for our website.

We try to select someone who is beautiful and somewhat ageless in that she appeals to most people. We've had a lot of positive comments about the model currently showing on our website. She happens to be very tall and have very gazelle-like legs, but not a size zero by any means. You can see that in her face.

All kinds of women of all kinds of ages buy BE. However, it may well be that those aged 30-50 (in actual fact mostly in their 30s not in their 40s and I'm pretty sure most are of a healthy weight rather than overweight) are, funnily enough, more likely to post pictures and reviews on our website and more likely to use internet bag boards than are our younger customers.

As for modelling bags, or clothes, or shoes or anything else for that matter on "real women" I won't deny that brand perception is important, as it is with all companies, but I personally think this model is very real and does represent the average BE woman, who is stylish and fashionable. True, she is taller than most of us, but most models are. And I'm not sure that showing overweight women in their 40s would appeal to the vast majority of women. I will be the first to say that it would not appeal to me.

All companies must strike the right balance between "real" and "aspirational" when showcasing their products, because first and foremost, "normal" is so subjective and secondly, however we look, everyone likes to dream. On a final note, this is the reason we set up our gallery, so that you can see bags being worn by all different kinds of women in all different kinds of situations. If you haven't yet seen it you could take a look, I hope it helps.

Thanks again for having the guts to raise this issue, we are always interested in honest feedback and will bear all comments in mind.

Jackie XOX