Falph Lauren Spring 2009 (Readers tracking Isabelle Caro story, see 12/30/10 Isabelle Caro Dies, Reviving Size 0 Fashion Model Debate) I assume that the folks at Ralph Lauren could give a flying popcorn ball about filmmaker Darryl Roberts’ boycott of Ralph Lauren in three major US cities this month — Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Thankfully, his group was smart to leave LA out of the mix.

Stopping by Roberts’ Facebook page this morning, he indeed has signed up 3800 supporters in the first 36 hours. That’s no small feat. Wait — big is bad, right. Fewer signups is better in the world of high-end fashion.

Darryl Roberts’ videos of his beauty industry, body image and eating disorders documentary “America the Beautiful” are on YouTube, where we can take a look.

America the Beautiful Trailer

Supporting Roberts in this boycott are the YWCA of America, IAEDP (International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals) and ANAD (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Eating Disorders).

Personally, I’m intrigued with the YWCA’s involvement.

No offense to the other two groups, but America has an obesity epidemic, and it’s very tough to get traction around the idea that women are just too thin because the beauty industry demands it.

The YWCA is different, because of their size and also their American Pie, Girl Scout now urban girl of every shape, size and color kind of DNA.

No boycott is welcome at Christmas during a recession. The real broken arm could come, not in any loss of revenue in expensive ready-to-wear, but in the licensed products — especially beauty and fragrance.

“Ralph Lauren apologized for the first image of Fillipa Hamilton that was photoshopped,” Roberts says, “but later he was caught with a second image and a third image. If he was truly sorry, why didn’t he pull the additional ads when he apologized for the first one? So it seems that his company has an apologize-as-we-get-caught philosophy.” via PR Newswire

Personally, I believe that the psychic damage is of another kind — the self-loathing American women feel about themselves, compared to French, Italian and Brazilian women — for multiple reasons. Even at a younger age and normal size, American women and girls lack confidence about their physical looks.

These insights are woven continually into my writing, but we’ve now opened up a separate channel for the writing: Body | Beauty | Culture.

Returning to the boycott, the filmmaker says: “The reason that we’re boycotting is that we want him to commit to never putting out another ad that’s egregious and offensive to young women and girls again.” via PR Newswire

That’s a pretty big mouthfull of words from Mr. Roberts.

Let me ask — is Ralph Lauren’s new muse Ubah Hassan, featured above in last spring’s ad, “egregious and offensive”? Or is she just really thin … and tall, beautiful and elegant?

Do women really want to look like her? Many don’t.

I can honestly say that at no age in my life did I want to be this thin, this tall or lacking in a bust.

Perhaps I’m the aberration. Having said that I absolutely do not wish for one moment that I had Ubah’s measurements, I can appreciate why Ralph Lauren believes she’s a fabulous fashion model.

Ubah is 5’11”, measurements: bust 32”, waist 24”, hips 34”. Practically speaking, the vast majority of women can’t look like Uban Hassan if they tried.

The truth is that Ubah Hassan has a body that’s a fashion designer’s delight. And before we jump all over Ralph Lauren for using a model with measurements that are unique but not necessarily aspiration or attainable, let me remind you that Ubah Hassan’s story is one of those miraculous ones that we adore in America.

“When I design a collection, I have a heroine in mind. She is the star of my movie and expresses what I have to say. I study her character and I create for her and through her,” Ralph Lauren said, when making Ubah his new Ralph Lauren muse.

Ubah, whose name translates as “flower”, grew up in the city of Baidoa. In 1991, after the onset of political unrest, her family split up, her mother fleeing with Ubah’s sisters, while she, her father and younger brother sought refuge in neighbouring Kenya. via Telegraph UK

The family were finally reunited in Vancouver Canada, in 2001, after a decade of separation.

The word is that Filippa Hamilton was fired for being too fat.

While that idea is astonishing, next to Ubah Hassan, Hamilton does look more robust in an 80s supermodels kind of way.

I think we should be honest and say that Ubah inspires Ralph Lauren as his muse. He believes that she represents his brand in today’s world. His is a designer’s prerogative.

The problem is that if the gorgeous Hamilton creature above — one who is personally aspirational for me — is “too fat” for high-end designer brands in today’s world, what is my takeaway?

We’ve witnessed a very real decline in model size, such that Lara Stone agonizes over being the ‘fat girl’ or the girl with curves at size 4.

Today’s fashion world does NOT like curves. In that respect, they deny the very physicality that differentiates men and women. An intelligent person doesn’t have to be Freud or Jung to figure out the trend.

In my writing, I make it clear that I believe Hamilton’s sensuality and healthy looks are challenging.

Ralph has every right to change out his models and put a new face on the brand. If he had made the transition without Photoshopping away ounce of Hamilton’s sensuality and healthy good looks, I would not be so concerned about his motives.

While I agree that America has a serious obesity problem, I do not understand why none of the eighties supermodels — Campbell, Seymour, Turlington, Crawford and company would cut it in today’s model world. Everyone agrees this is true; Cindy Crawford confimed that fact days ago.

I honestly believe that fashion designers owe women a better explanation of this “trend” towards nothingness, than simply saying “times change”. To the extent that we launch a serious discussion on this subject, what’s really going on here? Writers and editors need to dig deeply on this subject, or let’s not discuss it at all.

Diversity in models comes in all shapes and sizes, and Ubah Hassan deserves a great run in the world of modeling. My only comment is that I hope to heck that the folks at Ralph Lauren didn’t feel the need to Photoshop Ubah’s arms to be thinner for the Spring 2009 ad than they already are.

via The Couture Chronicles, model Isabelle CaroWhen I Googled French politician Valerie Boyer, who has proposed French legislation that tells readers when photos have been retouched, the photo below came up in Google, page 1.

I felt better seeing Ubah Hassan’s bikini photo above, because looking at her in the Ralph Lauren ad, I wondered if she looks like this woman in real life. At one moment I was staring at the Ralph Lauren ad, thinking that Ubah’s arms bear a striking resemblance to the ones above.

Just tell me that folks DIDN’T photoshop Hassan’s arms to make them thinner, because Ubah Hassan is thin enough. And let’s admit that Filippa Hamilton’s body was Photoshopped to look more like the “new style” of beauty at Ralph Lauren.

The fact that Hamilton’s photo looked nothing like her real self is irrelevant to the folks at Ralph Lauren. Like it or not, there’s a new girl in town, and she looks nothing like Filippa Hamilton. We’re not boycotting a surreal image of a woman who doesn’t exist. She’s real and has her own poignant life story.

Ubah Hassan isn’t Ralph’s only model, of course. The challenge is the entire “face” of the brand. Is it balanced by body type, or has everyone gone on a diet?

I could talk with Darryl Roberts about the need for more global-looking, multi-ethnic models in fashion, but I won’t. I, too, was furious about the Hamilton Photoshop fiasco, and I support his filmmaking.

Fashion is multi-layered and complex, even if it often seems that we’re just a bunch of airheads. To be continued, I’m sure. Anne

More reading: you might think I’m being unfair with this last thin-woman photo, but I don’t agree.