A Second Ralph Lauren PhotoShop Mess Emerges

Recommended Sources

About Advertising Industry

BNET Advertising provides daily industry trends and news coverage with insights for managers and executives about the major agencies in advertising, marketing, and public relations. In addition to detailed company and agency profiles, we bring you detailed industry analysis on new partnerships and acquisitions, ad buying and cost, new investments, inventory issues, and other issues critical to the marketing sector.

A second ridiculous Ralph Lauren ad featuring an already-skinny model Photoshopped down into an implausibly emaciated bobble-head doll has emerged. The new one (click to enlarge) was found in Australia by PhotoShop Disasters, the blog of choice for bad fashion advertising.

Like the original Fillipa Hamilton disaster, (below) which appeared in a Japan department store, the new ad shows a model whose head is the same width as her waist — something that does not happen in real life (unless you are dying from starvation).

That both ads were edited in the same way suggests it is not a one-off mistake by a rogue foreign unit. It’s starting to look more like Lauren’s art directors are all receiving similar instructions.

More broadly, it says something extremely depressing about how fashion regards women’s bodies. Preferring thin women is one thing, but when thin isn’t enough and the model has to be (literally) impossibly thin, how are consumers supposed to react?

And finally: Ever notice how clothes on store mannequins are pinned in the back to make them look tighter?

Tags: Advertisement, Ralph Lauren Corp., Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

BNET User Analysis

Voice your 2cents

Web Buzz:

Ralph Lauren Tries To Censor BoingBoing

PSFK - 123 days 6 hours 20 minutes ago

After Xeni Jardin complained about an ad from Ralph Lauren that had apparently been photoshopped to make the model look ridiculously skinny, the fashion company sent the popular blog a take-down notice asking them to remove the photograph of the ad
Ralph Lauren And Its Lawyers Discover The Streisand Effect On Bogus DMCA Takedown

TechDirt - 125 days 9 hours 34 minutes ago

Will they never learn? Issuing bogus DMCA takedowns to get content down that you don't like, rather than which is actually infringing, is going to backfire. Badly. Last week, the website Photoshop Disasters put up a post showing a ridiculous Ralph Lauren ad with a woman who was too skinny to be alive. Boing Boing put up a post about it, along...
Ralph Lauren Strikes Again! Is "PhotoShop Disaster" Company Policy?

BNET Advertising - 116 days 4 hours 58 minutes ago

What is wrong inside Ralph Lauren's advertising department? A third ad in which a model's head has been PhotoShopped so that it appears to be as
Why Ralph Lauren Photoshopped That Model So Skinny... It Thought She Was Fat... At 120 lbs

TechDirt - 116 days 6 hours 41 minutes ago

We recently wrote about Ralph Lauren's DMCA notices about bad Photoshopping , making a model impossibly (and sickly) skinny. While the company apologized for the bad photoshopping, it never apologized for the bogus DMCA takedowns. And, now the other shoe has dropped. The model in the picture has spoken up and noted that she lost her job with...
Ralph Lauren Admits It Needs Photoshop Help... Doesn't Say Much About DMCA Help

TechDirt - 120 days 6 hours 34 minutes ago

Following last week's hubbub over Ralph Lauren and its lawyers sending bogus DMCA takedowns to sites who posted a Ralph Lauren ad that appeared to show an inhumanly skinny model, the company has put out a statement confessing that the ad was terrible : "For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity. After further...

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

1

Eliyahu60

10/16/09 | Report as spam

RE: A Second Ralph Lauren PhotoShop Mess Emerges

As long as we keep buying from companies that promote the idea of an ideal woman who looks like she's been just rescued from a famine, they're going to keep doing it. The fashion industry sends out some strange messages with their ad photography. Glancing through my wife's Vogue and other mags, I notice that the models not only are in need of a good meal, but they almost all appear to be sullen, angry, depressed, or otherwise dissatisfied with life in general. I suppose I'd be sullen as well if I had to wear some of the stuff they're flogging, but that's not the way to make it look desirable.