The world has been up in arms over recent weeks following the release of that infamous Ralph Lauren picture featuring heavily airbrushed model Filippa Hamilton.
In the image in question, which was intended for one of the designer clothes label’s Japanese advertisements, the 23-year-old beauty’s waist was shrunk down to look narrower than her head.
The public and sections of the fashion industry were outraged – understandably so – and judging by your past comments, so were you.
But that has done little to halt Ralph Lauren in its skinny-obsessed ways. In fact, one could argue that the brand has been spurred on by the controversy created and has further fuelled the issue by slipping another digitally-enhanced picture under our noses.
An image featuring model Valentina Zelyaeva has appeared in a shop in Sydney in which the already thin 27-year-old stunner’s waist has been narrowed beyond belief.
Commentators on PhotoshopDisaster.blogspot.com, where the altered picture has been posted, have voiced their outrage at the image, with one person saying: "[Why don't they] just show their clothes on skeletons … or are those not skinny enough?"
Call me cynical, but could this be a contrived ploy by Ralph Lauren to raise brand awareness?
The fashion world has not stopped talking about the label and its designer jeans range since the picture of Filippa surfaced last week, so perhaps it’s cashing in on that fact and presenting such drastic digitally-enhanced images purely to spark debate.
I hope that isn’t the case as that would be one seriously irresponsible thing to do. While we lot have the sense to condemn the brand for its obsession with skinniness, there are countless impressionable teenage girls out there who believe such an impossible ideal is how they should look.
Do you think there are sinister motives behind this latest picture?
