It's been almost a year since Darryl Roberts premiered his documentary, "America the Beautiful," in Birmingham, and he continues to crusade against unhealthy practices in the fashion and beauty industries. His most recent efforts have been focused on calling a boycott against Ralph Lauren for their practice of photoshopping of models to make them look unrealistically thin. Here is an excerpt from his blog:
In late September, an ad by fashion giant Ralph Lauren surfaced in the United States showing an image of recently fired Filippa Hamilton that was so drastically retouched that the 120 lb 23 year old model looked sickly, emaciated, and almost alien.
...After receiving tons of negative press, the company apologized for the photoshopped image saying, "We have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body..."
Unfortunately, we've learned that this apology was empty and insincere, as two more ads emerged; showing equally, if not even more drastically altered female models...
...No more insincere Apologies, no more tiptoeing around the seriousness of this matter, we need a FIRM COMMITMENT from Ralph Lauren and his company that he will put an end to this egregious type of advertising forever. Please join the Boycott and help stop the suffering of women everywhere!
His grassroots campaign has been generating a lot of supporters and momentum, and Darryl is currently working towards getting the story aired on CNN. For more information about the Ralph Lauren boycott, check out the following links: (Please note that you may find some of the photos on these links disturbing.)
