I'm with Boing Boing (and everyone else) on this. You can’t go around suppressing well-deserved criticism as copyright infringement just because you haven’t got a leg to stand on. Or rather, you have got a leg, but it’s been so spindlified in Photoshop that there’s no way it could possibly bear the weight of crap you've heaped on that model’s shoulders. In essence: Ralph Lauren makes model look, literally, impossibly thin. Critics point this out. Ralph Lauren sends heavy cease and desist crapola. Critics rejoice, invite ordinary folks, like me, to help others laugh at Ralph.
That bit’s easy. The part I really, really do not understand is the part where women look at that picture and say to themselves, “if I buy Mr. Lifschitz’s schmatter it will make me so gloriously thin that red-blooded men will turn away in horror”. Does it work? You bet:
The US premium brand revealed that net profits fell 19% to $77m (£45.3m) during the quarter to June 27, versus $95m (£55.9m) during the first quarter the year before.
Note, it's not the fall in profits I’m interested in (although hope springs ...), it’s the height they're falling from.
Why does it work? I haven’t the faintest idea.
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