Ralph Lauren Photoshops supermodel into Olive Oyl

12th October 2009

Ralph Lauren Photoshops supermodel into Olive Oyl

posted in Advertisements, Anorexia, Book Reviews, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Family Issues, Fashion, Fat Acceptance, Fat Bias, Personal, Rachel |

French-Swedish supermodel Filippa Hamilton is thinner than 99 percent of American women, but she’s still not thin enough for Ralph Lauren. After legally threatening the website Boing Boing for posting a horribly digitally altered Ralph Lauren advertisement of Hamilton in which the model was Photoshopped to give her an impossibly skinny body (”Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis”), the fashion house admitted to Extra, “Oops, our bad.”

Here’s the image, originally posted on Photoshop Disasters for obvious reasons. Photoshop Disasters also received a similar threatening letter and took the image down.

Ralph Lauren Filippa Hamilton Photoshop Disaster

Ralph Lauren issued the statement: “For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity. After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body. We have addressed the problem and going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the caliber of our artwork represents our brand appropriately.”

Quality and integrity? There are many, myself included, who would argue that Ralph Lauren’s normal “brand” caliber presents very distorted images of women’s bodies on a daily basis, but frankly I doubt the company cares much or at all. Jenny Lauren, the niece of Ralph Lauren, developed a serious eating disorder as a teen — her disorder, like others, was complex in nature, but she admits in her deliberately titled memoir Homesick that fashion and her family played a “huge role” in affecting her “psyche” — and even now as a mostly recovered adult, still suffers mentally and physically from it. Violent bingeing and purging caused Jenny’s colon to herniate so that her small intestines dropped to the space between her rectum and vagina, sparking a lifetime of living with chronic pain and ailments. Her search for relief has taken her from the Mayo Clinic to a spiritual healer in Brazil, from the East Coast to Tucson, Arizona, and she suffers still.

Ralph Lauren doesn’t seem to care that his upscale rail-thin images contributed to his niece’s eating disorder and subsequent debilitating ailments; why should he care about all the other girls (and boys) who develop eating disorders in attempts to look like the digitally slimmed models gracing his catalogue and website? The only reason the company objected to this ad is because it went too far and made the brand an object of ridicule and not aspiration.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 10:51 am and is filed under Advertisements, Anorexia, Book Reviews, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Family Issues, Fashion, Fat Acceptance, Fat Bias, Personal, Rachel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On October 12th, 2009, No Celery Please said:

When, oh when, will I learn to avoid the comments? Really? On the Extra web site there’s someone posting that the model in the picture looks “Just Right” !!???

Sigh.

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 11:27 am

2 On October 12th, 2009, Frankincensy said:

It scares me that the first time I saw this picture (on the Fatosphere feed), it took me a moment – and reading the accompanying text – to notice how alarmingly off the proportions are. Looking at the model’s size, I just thought “oh, another extremely thin model” rather than “…wait, what?”, and I’m far from being a heavy consumer of this kind of image.

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 11:31 am

3 On October 12th, 2009, Keva said:

Rachel Maddow covered this on Friday: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#33250063 I thought the most interesting point was that instead of fessing up at first, they tried to go after sites for copyright infringement. WTF?!

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 11:32 am

4 On October 12th, 2009, Rachel said:

“Shrinky-dinked…” I heart Rachel Maddow Thanks for the link, Keva!

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 12:13 pm

5 On October 12th, 2009, cassi said:

Ditto! Rachel Maddow rocks. I’d love to see Lauren’s lawyers try to sue MSNBC over fair use. Hah!

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 1:13 pm

6 On October 12th, 2009, Shannon Russell said:

The image would be so laughable if it wasn’t such a serious issue. Okay, maybe its still laughable and a great teaching moment at the same time.

Geez, who photoshopped this and thought, “Man, this lady’s got it goin’ on!”

She reminds me of my daughter’s Polly Pockets.

Peace,
Shannon

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 1:36 pm

7 On October 12th, 2009, rachel with a little "r" said:

The bad thing is, that fortunately, *fortunately*, someone who was not a whiz in Photoshop did THIS one…but so many are done by Photoshop whizzes (and anatomy whizzes, not to mention), that these fake people slide right by everyday in print with no one giving them a second thought. it’s only when they do it terribly wrong that the fakeness is exposed for what it really is. And whoever said this woman looks “just right” was either being facetious or has been living in a very tall tower in a castle all their life and just now got internet access and this happens to be the first picture of another human that they accessed with it; imagine the odds…

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 3:41 pm

8 On October 12th, 2009, Rachel said:

@rachel: This image has clearly been altered, but the market is so saturated with digitally altered size-zero models that I can see where someone might actually believe this woman is truly this thin. Her proportions are impossible, yes, but I bet the image shows up as “thinspiration” on at least a few pro-ana boards.

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 3:49 pm

9 On October 12th, 2009, Bethface said:

Oh good grief. She looks ridiculous. How could any human being look at her and be like “Oh, wow! Look at those jeans. I think I need a pair” All I see is some cartoon like woman. The people at Ralph Lauren are just plain stupid. They really should be ashamed of them selves.

p.s. I also love Rachel Maddow. She rocks!!!

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 4:13 pm

10 On October 12th, 2009, Bree said:

How can anyone look at that and think this is what all woman’s bodies should resemble.

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 5:45 pm

11 On October 12th, 2009, Frail Sister Comics said:

When this was first posted at Photoshop Disasters someone pointed out that you can see where the models hips actually came out to by the position of her hands. Visualise the image so that the models hips actually make contact with the base of her palms and it’s a 1000 times less freaky looking.

If only all photoshop downsizing left such obvious clues as the floating hands in this example.

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

12 On October 12th, 2009, Lu said:

Things like that picture make me furious. Thanks for bringing it to light. I heart Rachel Maddow too.

posted on October 12th, 2009 at 11:00 pm

13 On October 13th, 2009, PlusSizedFeminist said:

Why should we be surprised? The fashion world is hell bent on keeping its illusion of skinny, no matter what. Even if that skinny is so unattainable, that it looks like this cover. Thin is all they know, and all they will accept. It’ll pretty much take a designer coming out and having only plus sized models on the runway in Milan to make things happen

posted on October 13th, 2009 at 12:47 am

14 On October 13th, 2009, Lenore said:

Yikes! It’s like a Bratz doll come to life! This is so badly done even by the modeling industry’s awful standards, I’m shocked that this pic saw the light of day. I mean, you’d think there’d be several people who have to sign off on something like this before it goes public, how did they all miss it?

posted on October 13th, 2009 at 4:01 am

15 On October 13th, 2009, cassi said:

You know, two people have mentioned how many dolls look like this… why the hell are we giving our daughters dolls to play with that have this shape??

posted on October 13th, 2009 at 8:51 am

16 On October 13th, 2009, Shannon Russell said:

Cassi,
The Polly Pockets dolls don’t seem that bad to me. As opposed to Barbie’s impossibly voluptuous proportions (which I’m wary of, but my wife is okay with… she played with them as a girl and didn’t feel like it affected her body image), Polly Pockets look like charactures (huge heads, Popsicle stick bodies). I make sure to laugh with my daughter about how silly they look and say, “Do you know anybody who looks like this?” She thinks its funny.

I’m trying to strike a middle ground with my girls. You can’t avoid the images, but you can let them know that its unrealistic.

Peace,
Shannon

posted on October 13th, 2009 at 10:51 am

17 On October 13th, 2009, cassi said:

Shannon, I wasn’t specifically trying to dis anyone for buying the dolls that exist and I’m sorry if it came off that way. Dolls aren’t real and I certainly don’t look like my old raggedy anne either. I think just pointing it up to your child is a good thing. Still, as a society it’s an odd thing that we give children toys that reflect such a twisted version of reality (and I count GI Joe in that too, since not many guys look much like him either).

As for Barbie, I’ve been ticked at Mattel ever since the whole, “math is hard” debacle.

posted on October 13th, 2009 at 11:36 am

18 On October 13th, 2009, Lexie Di said:

I’ll admit… I had to do a double-take. I was like “Ugh, why does the fashion industry force this- wait…”

I wonder who was like “Yeah… Yeah! Good job on photoshopping this, Frank/Fran!”

As for dolls… I remember the old polly pockets… the one’s I played with… (That actually fit in your pocket, which was so cool!)

http://thmb.inkfrog.com/thumbn/powerpapa168/polly_pocket_A.JPG=600

They actually look like little girls… with pudgy tummies on the cute babies, even!

This is the Polly Pocket I know and love.

posted on October 13th, 2009 at 12:58 pm

19 On October 13th, 2009, Shannon Russell said:

Don’t worry Cassi, I didn’t take it personally. Its something I do happen to worry about, being a man raising girls and all, so I appreciate the feedback.

Peace,
Shannon

posted on October 13th, 2009 at 2:17 pm

20 On October 13th, 2009, Jayson said:

This is truly disgusting, truly disgusting. It’s beyond tragic that a million dollar or even billion dollar fashion company could create and release an image that evokes a response of disgust to the public. They have way too much money to not doing their job of showing beauty.

posted on October 13th, 2009 at 10:38 pm

21 On October 14th, 2009, Forestroad said:

update: the model is now claiming that RL fired her for not fitting into sample sizes (at 5′10″, 120lbs, size 4).

Also, yeah the first time I saw this image it looked totally weird and obvious, but each time I see it it looks more and more normal, and I have the same reaction as some of the commenters above, thinking yeah she’s just really thin. It’s sick how powerful this stuff is.

posted on October 14th, 2009 at 10:08 am

22 On October 14th, 2009, Amy said:

I shared this with my Child Development teacher. She was quite intrigued.

posted on October 14th, 2009 at 10:55 am

23 On October 14th, 2009, Shannon Russell said:

Forestroad,
Do you have a link? I’d love to see that. Who the hell is Ralph Lauren’s ideal model? Skeletor?

Peace,
Shannon

posted on October 14th, 2009 at 11:28 am

24 On October 14th, 2009, Willow said:

http://www.examiner.com/x-14380-NY-Celebrity-Fitness-and-Health-Examiner~y2009m10d14-Ralph-Lauren-model-Filippa-Hamilton-Fired-for-being-fat

posted on October 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm

25 On October 14th, 2009, Forestroad said:

I saw her on the Today show this morning; you can probably youtube it but Willow’s link gives you the gist of it.

posted on October 14th, 2009 at 1:33 pm

26 On October 14th, 2009, Rachel said:

Thanks for the heads up Forestroad and Willow.

27 On October 14th, 2009, Underweight supermodel too fat for Ralph Lauren » The-F-Word.org said:

[...] Filippa Hamilton has reportedly weighed in on the “shrinky-dink” hack job of her by Ralph Lauren. According to the Examiner: “I was shocked to see that super-skinny [...]

28 On October 16th, 2009, Charlotte said:

Oh, dear lord. Normally these things piss me off (though with my few years’ worth of art classes, I tend to have fun spotting the photoshopper’s anatomy failures). This, however, is kind of hilarious- she’s built roughly like Jack Skellington. All she needs is a suit and some face paint.

…aaaand now I have This Is Halloween stuck in my head.

posted on October 16th, 2009 at 8:58 am