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They’re “Real women” just ….you know …. Photoshopped.

Posted May 9, 2008 by Richard Mullins

Updated May 12, 2008 at 02:46 PM

Remember when Dove got kudos for featuring “real women” in their commercials – you know – actual, non-supermodel humans.

Oops.

Turns out those real women may have been digitally “improved” a bit. The New Yorker has a recent feature piece on Pascal Dangin, “the premier retoucher of fashion photographs.” In it, Dangin says he fixed some items on Dove’s “real” women. To quote Dangin in the New Yorker: “it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”

BACKPEDAL ALERT: As of Monday, several companies issuing statements disavowing the New Yorker article, including the advertising agency (Ogilvy), Dove, the photographer (Annie Leibovitz) and their dogs too. The retouching artist Dangin issued a statement “My quotes have been taken out of context and my role with Dove misconstrued.” He now says he was only hired to “to remove dust and do color correction.”