Industry-Wide Intervention at Executive Level Needed
The controversy around ex-Ralph Lauren model Filippa Hamilton's ungainly distorted advertising campaign image this week has caused quite a stir in our nation. Sad to say, it's nothing new. We've heard it before over the years.
Be it an outcry from eating disorder advocates, mothers of teenage daughters or women struggling with their own body image, women are blogging questions like "When will this insanity stop?" "How can we and our children feel normal when most of the imagery we see is skewed to the prepubescent and unnaturally thin?" "Who approved this image? They're the ones who needs help!"
I remember at least three cycles over the course of my 20 year career when women revolted over the unrealistic and prepubescent size of glorified models. Saying how the unrealistic images were crippling the body image of our youth and landing them into eating disorder centers around the country (as it continues today in record and epidemic proportions, eating disorders is the leading death rate of all mental illnesses) experts, doctors, and mothers go head to head with industry fashionistas defiantly defending their covers, layouts and campaigns. Underdogs getting air time on national TV mornings and talk shows to voice their opinions, in-depth articles in women's magazines with inclusionary photos of beautiful models in a variety of sizes and talk radio waxed on and on with progressive talk about how change is coming.
Well, did it ever change? Have we made a dent in this whole issue of how we see ourselves and what is beautiful and what will we accept as too thin and too big to be an image of beauty?
As in each cycle, just when wave of acceptance and opportunity to use one's voice in the willing media would satisfy the mass' need to be heard, attention would be diverted to something else and then quietly and ever-so-subtly, the screws of the fashion industry would return to its old ways and slowly bear back down even tighter on the same images we revolted against with no lessons learned, no new pathways to enlightenment or at the very least empowerment for the women they were supposed to be serving.
I am certain the entire fashion industry needs a Body Image 101 course. Not only the airbrushing team hired by the Ralph Lauren company or the executives that had to approve the image to be released, printed and presented for use in the mass. Every single fashion industry player who has their hand in the process needs to understand in a real and personal way how their decisions affect their children, wives, lovers, and customers.
The selling products on emaciated women MUST change and the only way we can do so is by using our almighty dollar as OUR power. We must remember we are in the drivers' seat, that we are the ones with the power. So the next time you see an image that you feel degrades women in general, write/blog about the designer, store, magazine or news media source your opinion. If you don't see a change, simply stop spending your money with them and tell your friends to do the same. Bottom line is, money talks. I guarantee you will see positive changes if you take action. If you don't use it, you lose it. It's up to you and I, not waiting for "them" to change. Selling and buying clothes CAN be a joyous event and ultimately, this is point, right? It would help if "they" got it, but clearly "they" won't change until the pain of not changing is harder than the change itself. (This quote is not mine, but sooo good and very true.)
Please send the National Eating Disorders Association's website to any or all of those individuals or companies you feel could use insight to these deadly and debilitating issues.
For more information please go to: www.myneda.org
Follow Emme on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EmmeStyle
Was the Photoshopped Ralph Lauren model fired for being overweight? - Fashion + ...
Ralph Lauren model Filippa Hamilton: I was fired because I was too fat!
Ralph Lauren fires photo-chopped model for being too big - Boing Boing
Filippa Hamilton, Ralph Lauren's Retouched Model: I Was Fired For Being Too Fat
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Or... we could all stop talking about celebrities, models, designers all the time and focus on people doing truly important things, like scientists, architects, artists, teachers, peace corp workers, community organizers. We clearly teach our children who to look up to and what to aspire to. We need to change the culture, not through boycotting a certain designer but by erasing his stature as a person of importance. Who the hell cares what Ralph Lauren thinks about anything?
Start talking to your kids about your heroes and what's truly important in life. My mother always made it perfectly clear that brains, doing good and talent were what made a life worth living.
Turn off the TV, stop buying fashion magazines, volunteer.
One can always strive to improve themselves, but some go way beyond common sense and then it becomes an over whelming obsession !!
There are some things that people can strive to be!
Yet nature too has a say in how we are.
Some of us are in shape!
We are round!
It does not always serve in our best interest...at
times we wish it were different.
We are inconsistent in our regime and it too does
not serve us.
So.........what is the answer.
As for the model...she looks abnormal.
Yet there are some very attractive thin people
that have beautiful proportions.
Boycott Lauren - clothing, housewares, shoes, etc. Hit their bottom line and they'll stop.
My unofficial boycott has been decades long. I shop at consignment or thrift stores.
I was in a store in Beverly Hills when a "celebrity" SCREAMED
at the salesclerk for bringing her a size 12...which was the size
the "celebrity" needed. The manager took the tearful salesclerk
aside and said....
"We ALWAYS change out the size tag for her. Here, make it a 6."
Nuff said?
Ridiculous ego stroking.
Responsbile, yes. However on a deeper level Lauren feels no need to apologize. Neither do others in the industry who truly feel that body type equates to perfection.
My letter sent to Ralph Lauren:
I've always loved the Ralph Lauren look - it just really suits my style. The clothes fit beautifully, and are attractive and well-made. That's why it makes me so sad that I won't be able to purchase any more Ralph Lauren clothing. It seems clear that Ralph Lauren simply doesn't respect women at all. I understand that advertising is all about creating aspirational images, but when I'd heard that Ralph Lauren actually fired a size 4 model for being too fat, and saw the images of women Photoshopped to look impossibly emaciated, I was horrified. Even now, in the banner ad for your Spring 2009 fashion show, the image of the woman modeling your clothing is frightening - look at her arm! It looks like the arm of someone from a concentration camp. She's obviously starving to death. Well, I'm just starting to get tired of it. There is no need to buy clothing from any company that would hold that poor, sick girl or that crazy freakish photoshopped thing up as desirable images for women. I really had no idea before now how Ralph Lauren feels about women. It's really pretty gross. I'll miss your lovely clothing, but supporting this sort of unhealthy diminishment of women just isn't worth it.
faved!
"The selling products on emaciated women MUST change and the only way we can do so is by using our almighty dollar as OUR power."
This is the beginning and end of the answer to this problem. If only women were to stop buying RL and other brands that glorify the emaciated look. It is beyond me how so many women buy into and cultivate an aesthetic vision pushed by mostly non-female designers.
I can't believe that in 2009 this is an issue we have to handle.
Bless you, Emme! We love you!
Why don't women boycott the designers who continue to embrace an unhealthy, skeletal image? Hit 'em in the pockets.
I was really surprised to see ralph lauren go in this direction. The statement was a bad one for the entire brand.
I think consumers have the ultimate power to financially boycott the fashion industry until they get a reality check. Dying for Fashion is so OUT!!!
I'm not surprised. At one time RL also made very derogatory statements about how his clothing isn't intended for the "urban" youth market (translation = poor blacks) and was pretty adamant in defending his stand.
I long stopped spending money with him. He seriously needs a reality check. So many NORMAL sized people and "urban" people buy his clothes. We all need to stop the madness.
I think that RL Internet story about the derogatory comments, was actually about Tommy Hillfiger and it was debunked on Snopes a while back (there has been several variations)...
Still RL does need a reality check...I know it is Halloween time but enough with the skeletons....
Hey, lots of Caucasians live in urban areas. They aren't usually poor. Why should "urban" equate to "poor blacks"?
Well..except for the US, people are mostly slender. So what are you talking about?
Last time I went back to the states I was shocked. Could not believe the flab running around. Gluttony is an American passtime.
Why not just have women walk down runways carrying clothes on hangers?
I suggested that the designers pool their resources and have the Japanese produce Robot Models. They could be as skeletal as desired to have the clothes hang perfectly and pretty faces.
Problem solved. No tantrums, no deaths, no paychecks. Some women would still try to emulate the RoboMods, but that's their problem.
ModBots?
Or use moving racks like in the dry cleaning business.
Think of what the word MODEL means. It means prototype. It means something you are supposed to copy. There are many more obese girls than thin ones, and I'm convinced it's because so many girls take the attitude that "I can't be a model, I could never look like that, so I may as well eat what I want." If girls had more realistic MODELS, there would be fewer obese girls. And needless to say, there would be fewer cases of bulemia and anorexia.
I think what bothers me most about the photo was that someone thought it was perfectly alright. When it came across their desk, they approved it and sent it to print. Now that is downright scary. Ralph Lauren has lost touch with reality, lost touch with humanity and simply has lost it. What other explanations is there? I've had a few RL pieces through the years but honestly I'm done.
We have an entire generation of people who were raised from toddlers around Barbie dolls. We have been programmed to see these particular dimensions as the ideal. Turn a Barbie doll into an adult woman and you would have what you see in that RL ad.
Barbie has been around since the early '60s. This is a much newer problem.
Barbie had breasts and thighs that touched.
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