Ralph Lauren stick insect sacked for being 'too fat'

"We accept that we're responsible...

...but she's the one who's going to get ditched." RL, you are a bunch of wankers.

Translated

her dismissal was "as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us"

Or translated from markety-legal double speak "we fired her fat arse because we told her to stay skinny and she ate some celery"

You'd have thought that with the amount of money clothing companies save by off shoring production to Sri Lanka, India or China so they can stomp all over their workers' rights and pay children less salary & no benefits they'd be able to buy some extra material to tailor clothes to their models.

I'd love to see how quick she gets her job offered back to her and a REAL apology if Murdoch for example plastered this thick over the front page of The Sun etc.

Body Mass Index .. she's too fat ???

"The model, who is 120lb and 5ft 10in tall, "

According to that the model has a BMI of 17.2.

According to most checks that value means the person is Underweight, but not "seriously so" (Normal would be 18.5 to 24.9)

The fashion industry people and the advertising & magazine agencies who feed on them need to be taken to a Krispy Kreme outlet and made to eat there without fail for a year.

Looks a some of the pictures I have seen of Kiera Knightley

Another Bobble headed freak

Funny I used to get teased at school for being a Bobble Headed Freak. Wish I was a teen now as i would obviously be at the cutting edge of fashion. Just imagine all the chip butties I could buy if I was at the cutting edge of fashion.

May I be the first ...

To tell our "photoshopped alien looking model" pushing fashion overlords that the woman pictured doesn't look sexy, cool or human.

eugh...

Trying to make the abnormal the norm

Why do people let such a minority define the ideals for the masses? It seems most designers idea of a perfect body is that of a 10-12 year old boy. Maybe adolecent kid models would appeal less to the public, but that's no excuse for letting these people try to mold young women to fit their twisted ideals.

Filippa

Why can't (some) Americans spell names correctly?

Why can't fashion companies acknowledge the harm they are inflicting on vulnerable, suggestible people when they indulge in "size 0" facism? There is a limit to the amount people can be forgiven for being deluded by such amoral manipulation - after all, it is not a crime to be born stupid - but these organizations cannot avoid all responsibility.

Before I despair completey, I'll revert to apathy with the counter argument that, by the same token, no-one likes looking at lardy biffas.

The world: complicated, huh?

Contract?

What terms in a contract, look pretty, look demure, look good in clothes? How can you fail in things like that. It had to then be something like, strip, sleep with boss, lose weight on demand, look like prepubescent boy. Maybe these clauses she failed on.

Perhaps they (RL) might start recruiting from the under nourished sweat shop employees that make their stuff, they would find the stick thin framed girl they obviously want.

I hate americans for suppotring this monstrous size '0'. 8.5 stone isn't healthy in a 5.10 inch woman, making her thinner should be illegal.

@ Mike Bird 1

Erm, measuring fatness by BMI has long been debunked as inaccurate and basically utter bollocks, there being hundreds of factors it doesn't take into account and whatnot.

Try this, for example: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14483512/

Not really a surprise

A fashion industry run by gay men prefers their women to look like adolescent boys. What a surprise. The real shock is women fall for this.

Alternative headline

"Sacked Model Rides Coattails of Net-Wide Nerd Rage to Free Publicity"

It's lucky that no-one could possibly fall for such a blatant ploy.

Does any body actually find these models attractive?

Seriously - do they?

Who finds a woman who looks like an awkward, gangley, 12 year old boy attractive? It just looks unatural and unhealthy.

The media portraying this as 'normal' does put a massive pressure on to girls and women to look like these so called fashion icons. I have seen what an eating disorder can do a young girl and although she has recovered from that now she is stull suffering medical problems 5 years later.

@Tard

The world: complicated, huh?

I hear ya buddy. Hadn't noticed until today that the firefox logo actually has a fox in it.

Bratz taking over from Barbie

Obviously this is the effect of fashion designers playing too much with dolls when they (the fashion designers) were boys.

In the past this was Barbie dolls leading to a distorted idea of how a woman's foot, waist and bust is shaped.

The new generation of designers are playing more with Bratz dolls, resulting in an idea that the ideal female head is several sizes larger than her pelvis.

See also: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/bratz_dolls_may_give_young_girls

Trolls fortunately seem to be mostly influential in relation to hair-style - not ear, foot or facial proportions

the solution

if she spent 1 weekend with me she'd be a much more natural shape, i diet of fine beers and ethnic meat dining will allow her to gain a full shape

worth a punt too

Repeat after me ...

THE GUYS AT RALPH LAUREN FIND THIS ATTRACTIVE.

F*cked up, or what?

jebus !

That build is not actually acheivable for an adult without gaining malnutrition and/or death.....

Models looking like this are attractive how ?

Enough with the photoshop.

Image

I'm a perfectly healthy weight but it so happens that I have a big head which is larger than my pelvis.. this makes me look very thin. I'm fed up of people complaining about us big heads, telling us to put on weight and that we're unhealthy and that curvy is better and all that stuff. Everyone's different and if some fashion house photoshops an image to appeal to me and people like me then what's the big deal?

Re: @ Mike Bird 1

Jason Togneri> "

Erm, measuring fatness by BMI has long been debunked as inaccurate and basically utter bollocks, there being hundreds of factors it doesn't take into account and whatnot.

Try this, for example: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14483512/

"

This article hardly does a good job of debunking BMI: it quotes someone who says there are flaws and then fails to list them! What it *does* claim is there may be better measurements (which is a fair comment). It also says "[BMI] measurement usually works well because BMI does give the right answer when averaged across many people" - which is to be expected: rather than failing to take "hundreds of factors into account", average values are assumed (factored into the range of BMI values bounding the various "fatness" categories).

The other problem is that to claim one is better at measuring the same thing is to compare apples and oranges. Waist-to-hip ratio is just that - a ratio; dimensionless. BMI is in kg/m^2: if (as I think I read here before) we assume weight is proportional to volume, and height to shoulder width, the result of the calculation is proportional to *your* waist radius (the smaller or the larger of the two, as appropriate). If you've ever patted your belly to see how bloated you are - and I'm very good at knowing my weight from that these days :( - it's not that unintuitive a measure at all ... if you've analysed what it's trying to achieve.

Photoshop Challenge

Prize for best Bobble Head Bratz lookalike PS job of RL Model..

Oh RL already won.

not the only case

The "inability to meet" probably works out to her complaining about being turned into a stick puppet and all the bad press the company's taken for it.

And as for their comment about this being an isolated incident, google for "ralph lauren photoshopdisasters" and see that even with the bad press, they're still at it...

@Tard

"Why can't (some) Americans spell names correctly?"

So, when your name is Filippa (Hamilton-Palmstierna), some 'tard considers it wrong to actually spell it Filippa?

A question for you, 'tard, in return. Why can't some (actually, a lot) of people grok that the world is a wee bit bigger than just the United States of America? Where, as evidence tends to suggest, people spell their names any way that pleases them anyway?

120lbs

eh?

Ralph Lauren wants you to be unhealthy

Let's follow the logic:

1. Ralph Lauren says she was fired because she couldn't fulfil the terms of her contract.

2. It would be logical to assume her contract as a model requires her to wear their clothes.

3. The woman says she was fired because she couldn't fit into their clothes.

4. Therefore their explanation is consistent with her claims; she probably was fired because she couldn't fit.

5. Ralph Lauren says she is a "beautiful and healthy" woman.

6. But she can't fit into their clothes.

7. Therefore, their clothes cannot be intended for "beautiful and healthy" people.

Doesn't sound like the sort of thing I would want to wear.

@ AC and Stoneshop

"She's not American. She's a French/Swedish and also a Countess."

Thanks for pointing that out. I think my question should have been:

Why can't the parents of French/Swedish aristocrats, as well as (some) Americans, spell their children's names correctly?

@Stoneshop:

In English, the correct spelling is Philippa. I wrongly assumed the model in question was from US where, as I think you pointed out, they have a tendency to mis-spell English names. You might think that tendency makes the world a vibrant and interesting place. I, OTOH, think it makes them look like ignorant chavs - à chacun le sien.

@ Tard

Americans might spell names differently than Brits? Whoddathunk a whole country of immigrants of every nationality might thumb their noses at the King's English? Did it ever dawn on you that "Philip" and "Philippa" aren't even English in origin?

We also spell it 'fascist', sparky.

She could work for me

I have several positions.

Perv.

I already know what you're thinking.

I would love to see HER version of the contract since RL thinks it's so bloody secret.

I do have the feeling that she was fired for being close to a "normal" body size and not the size of the creature in that picture. She just didn't match the RL stick-insect body image.

@Tard

"In English, the correct spelling is Philippa."

So? I can't say I like that attitude you're showing here one bit.

@AC 10:34

"A fashion industry run by gay men prefers their women to look like adolescent boys. What a surprise."

Ah, so all gay men are into adolescent boys?

Please try to remember that "we" are not like "you"; you might be into adolescent girls, but it's best not to project too much.

Metric, non-metric, Brit vs American spelling, NOT the point

We can re-calcuate and remove/insert vowels, but let's go with 5'10" and 120 pounds...I'm a tall straight male, I like tall women and this is thin verging on TOO-thin. If the fashionistas didn't live in some fantasyland they would realize that the body-images they think are "normal" are quite simply not.

IMHO it's not healthy for women to be bombarded with these body-images simply because designers (who have been reported to refer to models as "clothes-hangers") think it ought to be so. A tall woman with a large frame will NEVER weigh 120 pounds, nor should they.

And they ought to be able to buy clothes that fit! As for Photoshopping, it has its uses, but making a person's head look bigger than their pelvis isn't one of them.

Thumbs-up for tall women who enjoy a good meal and other sensual pleasures.