You may remember the bone I picked with Franca Sozzani earlier this year about Vogue Italia's plus-size issue fronted by lingerie-clad models Candice Huffine, Tara Lynn and Robyn Lawley — if not, click here for a refresher — and similar feelings of disappointment flooded in when I saw Karlie Kloss looking simultaneously bony and sinewy in what is now positioned to be the most hotly debated editorial of the season. In the midst of Franca's much-publicized ongoing campaign against pro-ana and thinspo sites, she took to her blog to set the record straight — Karlie is not anorexic, nor was the editorial "overly photoshopped" and the only mistake she made was pulling the photo in question from the mag's website immediately after debuting it. Well, okay then.
According to Sozzani, she removed the photo not because it was intrinsically offensive but because the general audience, who is largely uneducated on the intricacies of photography, misconstrued it.
She writes, "I did not remove the first picture from the site because I thought it set a bad example due to its thinness, but because I am aware of the fact that people can easily attach labels without thinking, so I believed I could avoid a pointless debate. I made a mistake. I had to do what I thought was right, that is leave the picture and let everybody express their opinion freely. The picture is beautiful and that’s all."
"Not only Karlie is not anorexic but has a muscular body with a rounded contour due to the muscles’ tension, as you can see on the cover picture...Those pictures had been realized using a technique conceived by Man Ray called 'distortion.' Images shot with an elongated "distorted" effect, a bit like when we look in a convex mirror, obtained using zoom lenses and in particular wide-range zoom lenses, but also with normal lenses and in this case the effect depends on how close the shot is made. The limbs look elongated and obviously thinner. It’s a photographic technique."
She continues by saying Steven Meisel photographed the editorial close to the time Karlie made her Victoria's Secret Fashion Show debut, which should be proof enough that she doesn't have an eating disorder because, "Victoria’s Secret would never use an anorexic model as this would clash with their philosophy." This is where I helplessly allude to Anja Rubik's scary-skinny skeleton of a figure from this year's Fashion Show, wherein I was forced to pause the fete and snap a photo (below) of her vertebrae. I still love you, Anja, but this was a little too much to stomach.
Far be it from me to strip an editor or a photographer of their creativity, but I think Ms. Sozzani — knowing full well that Vogue Italia makes its way into the hands of a general, albeit sartorially minded, public — should have thought twice before publishing the photo in question. I know Karlie doesn't have an eating disorder but I also know that thousands of girls will still idolize her body — photoshopped or not.
What do you think of Franca Sozzani's pseudo-apology? Is it enough? Was it even necessary? Talk back below.
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