(Courtesy of Jezebel.com)

Jezebel is really on the ball lately when it comes to spotting photoshop disasters in fashion advertising. The latest offender: London Fog, which recently hired Mad Men‘s curvaceous Christina Hendricks to star in its fall ad campaign.

The trouble is, her famous curves are way less recognizable after London Fog’s photo retouchers overzealously took the Liquefy filter to her waist, hips, and even her wrists. The proof is in these photos — candids from the shoot compared with the finished product. There’s really no question that she’s been digitally slimmed down.

Why any brand would go to the trouble to hire Christina Hendricks — the proud poster child for curvy girls — and then change her proportions in post-production is beyond us. Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

In international news today, striking factory workers in Phnom Penh were beaten and tasered by police this week while protesting their low wages, reports the British media.

The Cambodian workers — mostly women — were earned less than £1 per day (or $1.56 in USD) producing clothes in a factory owned by a Malaysian firm that contracts with apparel brands like Gap, Benetton, Adidas, and Puma. Nine workers were injured in the riot.

The Daily Mail writes:

All four clothing and sporting companies linked to the factory have come under severe criticism from investigators for the harsh conditions endured and low wages given to their Third World employees.

Reports by charities such as Oxfam have found that the apparel industry, whether for designer labels or for garments that carry the names of big sporting companies such as Adidas, Nike and Puma, uses and abuses sweatshops.

Oxfam points out that workers in developing countries are paid minimal wages and are often forced to endure long hours in harsh and often dangerous conditions producing some of the world’s most expensive and coveted brands.

It’s particularly unsettling news given that Benetton is so well-known for its marketing campaigns invoking human rights, like the 1998 ad reprinted above.

Want to speak out on behalf of these workers? Sign up to receive the Clean Clothes Campaign newsletter for activism in your area.

(Frank Ockenfels/Blogs.AMCtv.com)

The advertising industry spent a whopping $125-billion last year alone to convince you that you couldn’t live without something. That is serious money, and while the ad industry can claim success, they can’t exactly say they came out of that success smelling like roses.

To combat the negative image many people have of advertising, industry leaders have banded together to launch the Institute for Advertising Ethics at the University of Missouri.

There’s a burgeoning need for this, says one of the institute’s founders:

“Because it is persuasion, advertising is viewed in a questionable way by a lot of people,” said Margaret Duffy, a former ad executive who now teaches at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and is helping to organize the ethics institute.

But even though the industry’s fundamental purpose is to convince shoppers to buy a product they may not actually need, such persuasion can be done in an “ethical and tasteful” way, she added.

The institute has appointed Wally Snyder as its leader, who will use his background as a former Federal Trade Commission lawyer and American Advertising Federation president to help people in the industry approach advertising in a more ethical way, and benefit ad viewers as well.

For more on the ethics of advertising, check out E.S. Issue 36, the Art of Persuasion.

A reader took us to task this week for blaming photographer Nicholas Routzen for Crystal Renn’s strangely thin physique in the new Passion for Fashion ads.

A few days after the brouhaha broke out, Mr. Routzen took to his blog to defend himself from the photoshop-happy criticism. He writes:

Below are 6 untouched images of Crystal moving around, shifting hips, working chin angles, etc.

It’s important to note that, if you watch her thigh, closest to the left side of the screen, as it shifts from a vertical position to a downward – there is a drastic change in body size. This is one of the most basic lessons, when studying either photography or film: lower angles give you a wider subject and the closest thing to the lens will look the largest. As I said in a previous interview, this series that I shot with Crystal was done from a higher angle and with a wider lens. …

I want to reiterate that I feel Crystal looks amazing in both images and the minimal retouching that I did do — it’s nothing you wouldn’t see in any magazine today. There is nothing hidden about this.

In our opinion, he lets himself off the hook a bit with the last part, about airbrushing being standard in magazines.

But what do you think, E.S. readers? Is Mr. Routzen’s evidence compelling to you?

Can’t photo editors leave Crystal Renn alone?

As you can see in this unedited photo, there is nothing wrong with the model-of-the-moment’s body. Ms. Renn is now a size 10 but in her own words, she’s far healthier than she was in her anorexic days. And she’s getting more work than she knows what to do with.

Big-name labels aren’t hiring her despite her curves, but because of them. So why would photographer Nicholas Routzen make the editorial decision to digitally shave several dress sizes off her frame for the Passion for Fashion charity campaign?

Ms. Renn herself has no idea, as she tells Glamour of her reaction to seeing the finished product:

I was shocked. When I saw the pictures, I think I was silent for a good five minutes, staring with my mouth open. I don’t know what was done to those photos or who did it, but they look retouched to me. And listen, everybody retouches, but don’t make me into something I’m not. …

But in the new pictures…well, that body doesn’t look like my body. It doesn’t. Having had an eating disorder, I know what that very thin body looks like on me, and it’s not something I find attractive. It’s not something I aspire to.

I feel completely confident in my own health because I know I don’t look like that, but even to see it in an image was really disturbing to me.

(Photo comparison courtesy of The Cut)

In a reverse of the Photoshop diagram posted in U.K. department store Debenhams last week, Nordstrom is now at the center of its own (undisclosed) airbrushing controversy.

Eagle-eyed blogger Tavi at Jezebel.com recently posted about a bad retouching job on a Ralph Lauren model appearing on Nordstrom.com. (You may remember this is hardly the first time Ralph Lauren models have had anatomically impossible retouching work done.)

A representative for Nordstrom has since responded to clarify the company’s policy on post-production work:

For the sake of clarity, as we previously mentioned, the orange t-shirt photo was indeed retouched: we smoothed out the model’s nipples, removed a few wrinkles from the pants and shirt and punched up the shirt’s color. In addition, as some of you pointed out, we also smoothed out her left hip (something that we neglected to originally mention). After taking a closer look at the final image, we think the smoothing was a bit heavy-handed and we’re disappointed with the result.

We also said in our response that we have a policy against “thinning or thickening” models. That’s not the case. It turns out that we don’t have a consistent policy on this. Actually, there have been times when we have “thickened” or added weight to a model or “thinned” a model by smoothing out bulges that may distort the shape of the clothes. It’s not a common practice for us, but we have done it on a case-by-case basis when we think it will make an image and the clothing we’re featuring look better or more true to life.

The backlash against gratuitous airbrushing continues, and we couldn’t be happier that people are picking up on it. The more we as consumers recognize the signs of a bad PhotoShop, the better equipped we are to recognize what attainable body-image ideals look like.

As many of our readers know, we have very mixed feelings about American Apparel. On the one hand, its vertical integration model means all of its clothes are made in the USA and we admire the label’s commitment to designing with recycled and organic textiles. On the other, American Apparel’s advertising strategy could stand to objectify women less. (A lot less.)

Now we have another negative to add to Column B. On Gawker.com, a tipster leaked the company’s confidentiality agreement, which must be signed by all new hires and limits employees’ ability to report questionable behavior. From the legalese:

You understand that the Company is a high profile publicly traded company that is vulnerable from a media perspective. You also understand that that the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, Dov Charney, is considered an international business celebrity and has become one of the most recognized CEOs in the fashion industry. …

Further, you agree not to disparage the Company or Mr. Charney in public or online on blogs or any other similar media. Further, you understand and agree that all communications concerning Confidential Information in public, even with fellow employees of the Company, that are or reasonably could be overheard by a third party (e.g., and without limitation, in bars and restaurants) shall be deemed a breach of this Confidentiality Agreement. …

In the event of any breach by you (or your agents) of this Confidentiality Agreement, you shall pay as liquidated damages, and not as a penalty, the sum of One Million Dollars ($1,000,000) for each such breach, which the parties agree represents reasonable compensation for the harm incurred as a result of such breach.

The contract seems explicitly designed to protect Mr. Charney, who is no stranger to accusations of sexual harassment and unethical accounting practices. We can’t help but wonder what he has to hide if he’s willing to threaten his employees with a million-dollar penalty for speaking up.

Retailers know a trend when they see it. At least British department store Debenhams has jumped on the let’s-eschew-unrealistic-body-image bandwagon with its latest storefront ad, which clearly labels everywhere one of its swimsuit models has been airbrushed.

As Mark Woods, Debenhams’ creative and visual director told the Daily Mail:

‘As a responsible retailer we want to help customers make the most of their beauty without bombarding them with unattainable body images.

‘Our campaign is all about making women feel good about themselves – not eroding their self belief and esteem by using false comparisons.

‘Not only does it make sense from a moral point of view, it ticks the economic boxes as well. Millions of pounds a year are spent by organisations retouching perfectly good images.

‘As a rule we only airbrush minor things like pigmentation or stray hair and rely on the natural beauty of models to make our product look great.

Those retouched waists are always so obvious, anyway, since much of the time they are ergonomically impossible.

This, by the way, follows Debenhams’ well-received test run putting U.K. size 16 (U.S. size 12) mannequins in its shop front this past February. Progressive forward momentum, we say.

(via The Cut)

OK, so like a lot of people, we love American Apparel’s awesome tee-shirts and commitment to ethical ideals.

But the company’s Best Bottom Contest is all kinds of wrong.

American Apparel recently posted photos of the scantily clad winners’ assets on its website and we’re vaguely horrified over the blatant objectification of the models, both male and female. But maybe not as horrified as we are about the new ads for the mesh collection. Which we will not be buying.

Look, we love a little junk in the trunk as much as the next person, but we don’t need to see this up-close-and-personal angle on blog ads. It’s a total turn-off. American Apparel should ask themselves, Is creeping out the consumer base really worth it?

It’s a critical issue of ethics that consumers know why we’re spending, on what, and the tactics that are used to part us from our money. That’s the essence of informed choice and ethical consumerism.

In the newest magazine issue of EthicalStyle.com, we cut right to the chase:

• Who’s dominating the advertising industry, anyway? Are they being straight with us, or do they have a secret agenda? You might be surprised what you read here.
• Contributing writer Adrian Desbarats, owner of green website FashionAndEarth.com, tells us how to recognize greenwashing when we see it and what we can do to protect ourselves from scurrilous marketing.
• To research the science of shopping, I dug into my college psychology and anthropology textbooks to explain how stores, displays, and sales are designed to entice us to buy.
• Reusable shopping bags are ubiquitous these days, and to capitalize on all that free advertising space, more and more companies are plastering their logos and slogans on them. But does that sully the intent of reducing waste?
• And since vintage photos are always a hit, here’s a slideshow of how advertising has altered its tactics over the past 75 years.
• Finally, if you are craving more on advertising, check out five more stories from the blog, reposted on Seam Ripper.