 Ralph Lauren has been forced to apologise after digitally altering a picture of a slim model to make her look appallingly thin.
In the disturbing image for the fashion firm's Blue Label range, Filippa Hamilton's head actually appears to be wider than her waist.
Last night Ralph Lauren admitted that it was responsible for producing 'a very distorted image of a woman’s body.'
The image of the 23-year-old Swedish-French model attracted widespread revulsion when it was reproduced on an Internet blog last month with the caption: 'Dude, her head's bigger than her pelvis.'
A spokesman for Ralph Lauren said: ‘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 calibre of our artwork represents our brand appropriately.’
Ralph Lauren's initial reaction to the image being published on the website was very different.
The company accused the Boing Boing website, which highlights the web's weird and wonderful sights, of copyright infringement when it reproduced the image.
Boing Boing, however, refused to remove the post, claiming that the image publication was: 'classic fair use: a reproduction "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting."'
Co-editor Cory Doctorow wrote: 'Instead of responding to their legal threat by suppressing our criticism of their marketing images, we're gonna mock them.'
Other strategies were to include reproducing the ad with the original criticism, publishing Ralph Lauren's legal threats and offering 'nourishing soup and sandwiches to [their] models'.
The decision to alter the model's picture to make her appear even thinner flies in the face of current industry thinking.
Only in June this year, British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman launched an attack on some of the world's most famous designers for promoting tiny body shapes.
Ms Shulman accused designer labels of supplying such small sample sizes that magazines were forced to hire size zero models.
'We have now reached the point where many of the sample sizes don’t comfortably fit even the established star models,' she wrote.
Eating disorder charity Beat and model Erin O'Connor hailed Ms Shulman's intervention as 'a huge breakthrough.'
'The fact that Alexandra Shulman with her enormous influence has opened this conversation means that it will have a huge impact,' Miss O'Connor said.
source: dailymail.co.uk
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