Man, I hit a busy patch at work and the net has a meltdown over a hideously Shopped image! In a way, I guess it is better that I am just sitting down now to write a post of what happened because writing all these updates over the last week would have driven me batshit crazy. Here we go…
A few weeks ago one of my fave blogs, Photoshop Disasters, posted the above image of a Ralph Lauren window display from Japan. Rightfully so, as it is a prime example of what can go wrong with overuse of the liquify filter, and therefore qualifies to be featured on the aforementioned blog. Shortly thereafter, Boing Boing posted the same image with a caption that said: Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis. (Which was funny cuz it was TRUE. To the right is another Ralph Lauren ad featuring the same model, Filippa Hamilton, with a rather normally proportioned body.)
Anyway, the peeps over at Ralph Lauren didn’t like all this poking fun at them thing, so they issued DMCA take down notices to PSD and Boing Boing, most likely thinking that would squelch any negative news. Boy, were they wrong.
Since PSD is housed under google webspace – and google caves at the slightest DMCA take down notice – they complied, but Boing Boing’s host did not. Boing Boing then proceeded to publicly mock Ralph Lauren along with pointing out the gaping holes in their reasoning for sending out such a notice in the first place. Kudos to the folks over at Boing Boing to have the brains to know when they are right and having the balls to say something about it!
So, after many, many, many, many, many… (you get the idea) negative news stories which created somewhat of a Streisand effect for the company, Ralph Lauren issued the following 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.
After the need to issue such a statement you’d think that heads would roll – that Ralph Lauren would find the retoucher, photographer and/or Art Director responsible for this visual disgrace and fire them pronto. Well, news surfaced a couple days later that they had fired someone – the model, Filippa Hamilton. Turns out Ralph Lauren fired her last April “as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us.”
It seems Filippa’s 5′10″, 120 lb., size 4 frame (which had not changed since she started modeling for Ralph Lauren when she was 15), supposedly didn’t fit into the sample sizes anymore. (Translation: she was fired for being too fat)…
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Well, maybe now things will settle down for Ralph Lauren. I mean, it was just one ad and one model, right? Oh, no, maybe not.
Oh, and now NOW is on the case?
Good luck with that, Ralph.
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