Digg this
A few weeks ago we called shenanigans on the Unilever-owned Dove’s Self-Esteem Fund (and before that, one of their save-the-children ads), but this is infinitely juicier.
Those underwear-clad “real women” in Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty ads? Photoshopped!
Pascal Dangin is the Michelangelo of retouching fashion photography. The New Yorker did a meaty profile of him in their latest issue:
[R]etouchers tend to practice semi-clandestinely. “It is known that everybody does it, but they protest,” Dangin said recently. “The people who complain about retouching are the first to say, ‘Get this thing off my arm.’ ” I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual “real women” in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. “Do you know how much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”
But the excuse from the ad company that developed the campaign for Dove wasn’t exactly convincing:
“We are unsure right now what he did,” the Ogilvy spokeswoman said.
Ooh, Unilever is firing somebody today.
Thanks to the ever-faithful and always-sexy reader Cassandra for the tip!
It’s hard to understand in this day and age why you’d actually have to photo-shop someone heavier. If you need some lard-asses for your add campaign Milwaukee is a 90 minute drive from here.
Ad campaign sorry.
Look, thin people like Madonna and Mariah Carey have people photoshopping them full-time. What makes you think that these ordinary ladies wouldn’t have pimples, moles, stray hairs, unfortunate shadows, etc.? The purpose of the campaign wouldn’t be well-served if they looked like they’d just rolled out of bed.
Re: the Milwaukee comments. I’m guessing Pastafarian is from Chicago. Believe me, there’s nobody fatter than a Chicago Bears fan, and I should know, because they used to come up for Packer games in Milwaukee. I-94 was a lot flatter after they’d driven up and back.
If this isn’t going to give all the normal girls, like myself, more of a heart attack than we already get by looking at Heidi Klum, then I don’t know what is. Girls can’t even be fat anymore and not be retouched. Yuck. And here I admired these women for putting it all out there - and it’s all fake. What isn’t fake anymore?!
If it’s any consolation, even Heidi Klum isn’t Heidi Klum anymore (click here).
How do you tell the difference between a cow and a woman from Milwaukee?
The cow’s the one eating grass.
Simon, thank you, thank you, but to be completely honest, I still think she’s damn adorable haha!
I just read that Unilever also owns both Ben and Jerry’s and Slim-Fast brands…oh, the mixed messages…
Maybe the Dove models can do an ad campaign for Slim-Fast next.
Pastafarian, I totally understand you writing “add campaign”. The first thing I thought when I saw the photo was, “double D’s”. Actually, it was the second thing I thought. The first was, “How can I get to the toilet and throw-up in time?”
Chris
reayx5,
one day, perhaps, you’ll have to leave your parent’s basement where you’ve been living rent-free all these years, leave behind the prOn, and meet some real women…
Pastafarian, you give a bad name to FSM supporters everywhere. If we had wanted to sign up for the bigotry and small mindedness you vomit during your rants we would have joined a…CHURCH (FSM forbid!!!). Get a life and hopefully you might even get a better attitude. Fat, thin, moles, scars, cellulite, whatever…send us a pic, bet you fit in there somewhere.
I have a life. It’s spent pissing off people just like you. I don’t ever remember “ranting” anyway. And I would send you a picture but because of my Adonis like appearance no one ever looks directly at me.
Pastafarian. Rant doesn’t just mean to speak or write in a violent and incessant manner, it also means to speak FOOLISHLY! Get the message? You are one FOOLISH individual. I’m not pissed off. I would have to say I am “mildly amused” by your lack of insight and general intelligence. Stupid people never piss me off, I just feel sorry for them in the way you would for anyone who hasn’t got a clue.
Cool. Well, good luck with all of that then.