Here’s a subject we haven’t considered before.

Susie Orbach, the foremost British psychologist on issues of body image and author of the book Fat Is A Feminist Issue, has accused lingerie companies of misleading the public by hiring models who have had breast augmentations to pose in their goods:

“I have plenty of clinical evidence to show that surgically enhanced models create a situation in which young women and girls feel inadequate,” Ms Orbach said. “They begin to think about how they can get their breasts to look like the ones that they see on ads. They feel dispirited because even though they know these images don’t necessarily relate to ‘natural’ bodies, they appear to be the norm and they feel left out.”

This reminds us of the controversy over using false eyelashes in mascara commercials, an issue over which a Rimmel ad was banned in 2007. But let’s open it up to the commenters: Do you feel inadequate when looking at lingerie ads featuring models who have surgically enhanced their bustlines?

In a move designed to curb young women’s exposure to marketing images that may affect body image, Spain has taken steps to ban diet and beauty ads from airing during primetime television hours.

An excerpt from the new law:

“Broadcasters cannot carry advertisements for things that encourage the cult of the body and have a negative impact on self-image — such as slimming products, surgical procedures and beauty treatments — which are based on ideas of social rejection as a result of one’s physical image or that success is dependent on factors such as weight or looks.”

The Spanish government is known for its progressive approach to stemming the tide of eating disorders among young women. In 2007, the health ministry worked with Spain-based fashion retailers like Zara and Mango to ensure that their mannequins were no longer smaller than a U.S. size 6. And in 2006, Madrid was the first city to enforce a body-mass index (BMI) minimum for models walking in fashion week.

Thoughts? Do you think it’s pointless to regulate marketers, or will this help prevent another Heidi Montag from happening?

An Oil of Olay print advertisement featuring 60-year-old supermodel Twiggy has been yanked in the U.K. for misleading the public.

The Advertising Standards Authority concluded it was photoshopped so heavily, the results were far beyond what any topical anti-aging product could promise.

The ASA explained in a press release:

“[W]e considered that the post-production re-touching of this ad, specifically in the eye area, could give consumers a misleading impression of the effect the product could achieve.

“We considered that the combination of references to ‘younger looking eyes’, including the claim ‘reduces the look of wrinkles and dark circles for brighter, younger looking eyes’, and post-production re-touching of Twiggy’s image around the eye area, was likely to mislead.”

Procter and Gamble, which owns Oil of Olay, admitted only to “minor retouching” of the photo for the ad.

This newest retouching scandal goes right to the heart of the question we’ve asked before: Are we so aware of such clearly altered images that they no longer bother us anymore? Or does the constant exposure to airbrushed images have a cumulative effect on shaping unrealistic ideas of beauty, particularly in older women? Share your thoughts below!

(via Salon)

You may have caught wind of SELF magazine’s huge screw-up over the summer, when the magazine airbrushed several dress sizes off of September cover girl Kelly Clarkson. Later, the magazine refused to apologize for feeding a photographic lie to its health-obsessed readership, claiming “our picture shows her confidence and beauty.”

But if blogger outcry and organized letter campaigns didn’t make the SELF editorial board listen, maybe this will: The issue was its worst-selling of the year, moving only 220,000 copies and causing the publication to miss its base rate.

This news is notable in particular because the September issue is typically a publication’s biggest of the year in advertising revenue. If readers boycotted, that would make a lot of important advertisers very, very angry.

It goes to show: Never underestimate the power of the purse — especially when the purse-holders are tired of being lied to.

(via Jezebel)

Ralph Lauren’s advertising department is likely getting an earful after yet another photoshop disaster is rocking its image.

Russian model Valentina Zelyaeva, who has been posing for the label since 2005, appears in the same ad on the Australian version of the Ralph Lauren site and in Sydney retail shops — only she appears significantly skinnier online, with hips half as wide as her shoulders and her ribs popping out through a tank top.

The bad retouching has resulted in scathing criticism on sites like PhotoshopDiasters, where one commenter says:

Why don’t they just show their clothes on skeletons… or are those not skinny enough? One ridiculously Photoshopped image is laughable, but a collection of them is grotesque.

The new images come on the heels of the scandal over model Filippa Hamilton’s extensive airbrushing in another Ralph Lauren ad. Seems to us that Ralph Lauren is going to have a hard time living this one down.

(Side-by-side images courtesy of DailyMail.co.uk)

France is considering a law to require advertisers to disclose when images have been doctored, reports Time magazine:

The drive against airbrushed photos is being headed by conservative parliamentarian Valérie Boyer, who says the widespread use of digital technology to alter images is feeding the public a steady visual diet of falsified people, places and products. This artificial reality leads people to expect perfection from themselves and the world in an impossible way, she says. “When writers take a news item or real event and considerably embellish it, they are required to alert readers by calling the work fiction, a novel or a story based on dramatized facts. Why should it be any different for photographs?” Boyer asks. “Rules on food-labeling let consumers know the origins of the contents and the presence of things like additives and preservatives. What’s wrong with … informing them when photographs have also been modified from their original form?”

Advertisers would argue that doing so undermines the allure of perfectly photographed people and places in marketing campaigns, which, in many cases, is what sells. A svelte model with perfect skin, for example, is likely to make you want to eat high-fiber cereal more than a model with visible imperfections. Perhaps, says Boyer, but she believes that passing enhanced imagery off as the real thing is misleading. Her proposed legislation would require doctored photos meant for public distribution to carry the warning “Photograph retouched to modify the physical appearance of a person.” Anyone violating the rule could be fined about $55,000. Since she presented her draft to parliamentary committees in September, Boyer has been joined by more than 50 other legislators who want to see it introduced as formal legislation and voted on in the coming months.

This story actually broke before the whole Ralph Lauren debacle, but it becomes an even more interesting question in light of those recent events. Where do you fall in this debate over photo retouching? Are ads understood not to reflect reality, or are we worse off with the white lie?

This story just keeps getting crazier. Last week, we told you about the controversy over a retouched advertisement for Ralph Lauren’s Blue Label that showed a severely emaciated model. The company promised to address the situation — apparently by firing model Filippa Hamilton:

She is 5′10″ and weighs 120 pounds–clearly more full-bodied than the photoshopped girl we see in the advertisement. Though Hamilton has modeled for Ralph Lauren since she was 15, the company let her go “as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us.” But the story gets worse: Hamilton says she was let go because she’d become too fat to model for them. “They fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn’t fit in their clothes anymore,” she explained. “I was shocked to see that super skinny girl with my face…It’s very sad, I think, that Ralph Lauren could do something like that.”

Not only that, but Hamilton says she was let go six months ago and yet Ralph Lauren continues to use drastically Photoshopped images of her face on a much skinnier frame. The above photo (from a past Ralph Lauren ad campaign) is a more realistic representation of her body, says Hamilton, who also appeared on the cover of Italian Elle last year.

We don’t understand how a woman with her proportions could ever be considered fat (even in the warped fashion world), and we definitely don’t get why Ralph Lauren continued to use her digitally altered body instead of hiring a new model with the look they were going for. But we hope they get their act together soon because this is shameful.

Ralph Lauren is attracting some heat from bloggers for over-retouching a model in a new ad for its Blue Label.

Websites like Boing Boing and PhotoshopDisasters have criticized the brand for digitally altering a model’s pelvis to the degree that it was smaller than her head, but Ralph Lauren struck back and sent legal demands that they remove the images from their sites, claiming copyright infringement.

The legal action created a full-scale internet war. But ultimately, Ralph Lauren issued this mea culpa:

“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.”

What do you think? Do brands have a responsibility to disclose when their advertisements are photoshopped (like they do in Australia)? Or does everyone accept this as a fact of modern marketing?

Barneys New York took a cue from Zoolander and dressed up their mannequins like homeless people — complete with park bench and garbage can.

OMG Blog has the photos and the story:

During my most recent visit to New York, I stopped by Barneys New York for a little shopping, and upon stepping out of the elevator at the Coop floor, this is what faced me: Mannequins with sad clown faces dressed up as homeless people (albeit in expensive duds).

The scene is so accurate down to the last detail that I did a triple take before uncontrollably saying something out loud about how ****ed up it is. We offend people every day here at !! omg blog !! but I think Barneys has us beat with this store display. Which part of “Taste. Luxury. Humor.” is this?

The display has shock value in spades but we can’t help but feel that at a time when many people are at risk of losing their homes, the message is in poor taste.

(via Racked)

Are taboos universal? Do you know taboo when you see it? Or are you so desensitized to scandal in fashion that you feel like nothing shocks you anymore?

In E.S. issue 16, we analyze the remaining taboos in fashion for what’s “been there, seen that” and what still requires the smelling salts.

Read up on:

• Weight bias, both in the pages of fashion glossies and in the world at large.
• Nudity in advertising, and why a bare nipple is fair game in France but scandalizing in the U.S.
• Media watchdog groups that have been trying to get Cosmopolitan and Glamour banned from supermarkets on moral grounds for years.
• Provocative runway moments — as you might expect, the ever-outrageous Jean Paul Gaultier and John Galliano have a few entries on this list.
• A roundup of our blog entries on scandal in fashion.