When we are little we hear “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.” But what happens when what we hold to be beautiful becomes warped and unrealistic?
Recently, Ralph Lauren, a giant in the fashion industry, released a digitally retouched photograph of model Filippa Hamilton making the already thin woman appear skeletal. At 5’10 and 120 pounds, the size 4 model is anything but fat, yet the image shows a grotesquely thin waist and hips to match making Hamilton’s head appear abnormally big.
For Hamilton, who worked for Ralph Lauren since 2002 and considered them her second family, this came as a shock--but not as much as the news of her termination with the company. According to an article in the Daily News, Hamilton claims that Ralph Lauren fired her on the accord that she did not fit into their sample clothing anymore, though her weight had not fluctuated while working for the company.
“They fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn't fit in their clothes anymore,” Hamilton told the Daily News.
Despite Hamilton’s allegations Ralph Lauren did not withdraw their previous statement of the model being unable to meet their obligations under her contract with them. However, they apologized for the photoshopped image saying that it was an accidental mistake on their part.
Yet a few days later another distorted image from Ralph Lauren appeared in an Australian store window. This time it was of model Valentina Zelyaeva whose already thin waist was retouched to alien proportions. With two photograph releases of emaciated looking models all in the same week the probability that both were an accident becomes almost improbable.
Needless to say, the public and the models have exploded in anger.
“Why don't they just show their clothes on skeletons ... or are those not skinny enough?” online blogger Elizabeth wrote in a post on Photoshop Disasters. “One ridiculously Photoshopped image is laughable, but a collection of them is grotesque.”
Another blogger from the same website said, “Aren't advertisements meant to make you buy things? Or is this some Ralph-Lauren-sponsored anorexia-awareness campaign?”
Hamilton is concerned how such releases may affect young women’s perceptions of beauty.
“I think they owe American women an apology, a big apology," she said. "I'm very proud of what I look like, and I think a role model should look healthy,” Hamilton told the Daily News.
Hamilton is right to worry. According to About.com 7 to 10 million women in the United States suffer from eating disorders. Putting re-touched images of models in magazine and websites sends the wrong message to the populace making young women especially vulnerable and ready to follow such “trends”.
“Young girls have indicated in surveys that they are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of cancer, nuclear war, or losing their parents,” Lisa Berzins, PhD, said at a 1997 Congressional briefing on eating disorders.
With that in mind, it makes one wonder when the fashion industry will make it their problem to worry about providing women with a healthy body image before they become just another statistic.
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