Fashion Lessons Learned?

Lesson #1: Going after bloggers who criticize your heavily doctored ads and editorial images will bite you in the ass.

Photoshop, like PowerPoint or nuclear technology, is not inherently evil. It’s the bullet-pointed corporate presentation, the neutron bomb, the digital manipulation of a model’s torso to resemble a whippet’s—that crosses the line into fiendish weaponry.

Recent examples in the fashion world abound—namely Ralph Lauren’s disfigured retouching of Filippa Hamilton, who sported a few missing inches of midsection and some delightful Americana patchwork jeans. In October, the brilliant website Photoshop Disasters picked up on the monstrosity ("Dude, her head's bigger than her pelvis”), and Boing Boing followed, triggering a feeble attempt by Team Lauren to cry copyright infringement! when its colossal mistake was pointed out for public shaming.

Thankfully we live in a society of fair use. Lauren backed down days later, issuing the following mea culpa: “Upon further investigation, 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.” (No apology given to the bloggers, who were well within their rights to comment.)

Retouching in fashion will never go away. Many of us don’t open Vogue Italia expecting to see a blackhead staring back; we want to step into another world, one populated with Margiela-clad citizens who have never waited in line at KFC. So what was Lauren’s misstep? Altering a body beyond the limits of human survivability, yes. But the attack dog response to its web critics isn’t likely to work moving forward.

Wendy Seltzer, an intellectual property attorney and founder of Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a website chronicling egregious cease-and-desist letters sent by zealous attorneys, has a message for brands and mags attempting to salvage some dignity. “Try to start a conversation with your critics, rather than making them start shouting behind your back,” she says. “Maybe they even have something to teach you. If you made a mistake, acknowledge it and move on. Don't jump to the legal threats, because even if you do have a claim (which is rare against parody and criticism), the Internet backlash against legal threats is often worse for brand image than the initial mockery."

Seltzer’s advice may not be a popular option, however. Via legendary attorney Marty Singer, Demi Moore recently lashed out at Boing Boing, which accused the actress of having part of her thigh shaved off for the December cover of W: “My client’s reputation has been tarnished by the false statements or implications that she desired or required that her appearance be digitally slenderized by altering the appearance of her hip," Singer writes. "We demand a retraction.”

Lesson #2. Don’t entrust an 80-year-old fashion house to a Hollywood starlet whose greatest fashion achievement is her leggings.

Hating on Lindsay Lohan is a bit threadbare these days. Except when you take into account her fashion mishaps as the artistic advisor to Ungaro, founded by the French designer who once helmed Balenciaga and popularized the previously frowned upon mixing of prints and textures in the 1970s.

Lohan's appointment intitially smacked of pure desperation. Then when we saw the clothes—that sad bandeau top, those juvenile asymmetrical dresses—and unfortunately our premonitions were duly confirmed. “What do the critics know?” Lohan asked after her 2010 spring/summer show, in defense as the front-row knives came out. (Answer: Not everything. But as far as Suzy Menkes/Eric Wilson/Cathy Horyn go, more than you.)

More than a bad collection, the Ungaro-Lohan mashup was offensive to fashion observers. “The industry may glorify trite things, but it is dead serious about credibility, especially when speaking of something as revered as Ungaro,” one New York market editor observes. So when Ungaro hired someone whose public displays of drunkenness far outweigh her public displays of style, the brand earned buzz. But the hangover from the saccharine tawdriness that was Ungaro spring/summer 2010, and the damage it inflicted on the brand's reputation will be stinking up the place for awhile. In a cosmic twist, Ungaro president, Mounir Moufarrige, the man who appointed Lohan, has resigned. But his appointee, LiLo, remains at Ungaro. Maybe albatrosses will be in next season.