Ann Taylor’s retoucher strikes again

Ann Taylor
Ann Taylor

If we've learned anything in the past year or two, it's that anything can and will be airbrushed. Hands, faces, limbs, waists, and hips will be altered, bodies will be swapped, and bellybuttons will be moved. While we understand that a company selling a product may smooth out clothing wrinkles or belly bulges from time to time, we're constantly shocked by the exaggerated alterations that occur under the Photoshop wand.

[Read more: Magazine editor defends photo retouching]

Back in May, Ann Taylor was called out for overly airbrushing their clothing, whittling down their models to nothing and assigning them Gumby-like curves. They took to their Twitter account to apologize, saying "we may have been overzealous on retouching but go (sic) forward we'll be sure to feature more real, beautiful images. We want to support and celebrate the natural beauty of women and we apologize if in the process of retouching that was lost." It was admirable of Ann Taylor to accept responsibility for their error, and we hoped it would be their last, but no such luck.

The above alteration was detected on Ann Taylor's site this week by women's blog, Jezebel. They explained that "as the page loads, you'll get to see what the Chiffon Trim Tank looks like on a real woman for a few seconds. Then she shrinks into a awkward creature barely able to support the weight of her torso with her tiny child hips." A glitch on Ann Taylor's web site for sure, but it looked as though they were taunting shoppers with a normal image of a model, followed by a completely unrealistic one.

As of Tuesday night, the computer glitch was removed and the thinner image no longer appears. Perhaps the backlash caused Ann Taylor to notice and remove this airbrushed photo (and any others like it), but we're upset that Ann Taylor may not be staying true to their word. We reached out to Ann Taylor, but as of press time they had not responded with a comment. Hopefully this will mark an end to their heavy-handed retouching wand for good. [Huff Post]

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