Anne of Carversville

If only London Fog loved Christina Hendricks hips as much as the rest of America.

First Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks was whittled down to fashion-appropriate size as a Barbie doll. Now she has ‘met the Photoshop wand death’ in her new campaign for London Fog.

Christina Hendricks isn’t allowed to inspire us in full. That famous hourglass shape figure — which doctor’s recommend as the healthiest body shape for women — has got to go. Hendricks has hips, damn it. And hips do not belong on a woman, say today’s fashion Photoshop police.

The ads, shot by Nino Munoz, feature the divine “Mad Men’ star in a sizzling iconic trench coat.

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Jezebel deserves a ‘high five’ for staying on top of the Photoshop controversies, calling our attention to the extensive Photoshopping done by Ann Taylor on their website.

The Ralph Lauren Photoshop debacle was challenging enough, followed by a quick skirmish with Nordstrom a few weeks ago.

Sitting here staring at the ‘improvements’ that needed to be made to this Ann Taylor model, to make her ready for Internet prime time confirms to me, once and for all, that real women model images aren’t good enough for even America’s mainstream retailers.

We’re not talking Bergdorf Goodman here.

I’m so tired of this Photoshop issue — but truly commend Jezebel for staying on the case — that my strong irritation and frustration in the Ralph Lauren case is now turning to resentment against fashion generally. I know the price that women pay for never being ‘good enough’ for business.

We’re always in need to new and improved. The size of American women’s past buying power guaranteed that we would get a triple dose of this messaging at the hands of advertising marketing strategists.

In fact, American business thrives — not on servicing women and celebrating us — but by making us feel inadequate in our own skin. No amount of “you, too, could be this beautiful” ad copy will improve my mood on this subject, now that I’ve decided to dig in my heels.

Mind you, I’m not crawling in the corner to hide out on this topic.

With no filler, no botox, and no slimmed down waist, I took fabulous photos of myself last week, without an ounce of retouching. They are today’s equivalent of Polaroids, taken sitting in front of my computer in artistic sunlight.

My guy loves them, as do my friends, and most importantly — myself.

Having loved style my entire life, I find myself resentful of all the improvers. Frankly, I have tons of beautiful clothes in my closet and will only support brands that show American women as the beautiful, gorgeous creatures that we are.

If fashion can’t take me as I am, I’ll buy microloans for poor women, rather than new clothes.

The Ann Taylor model image is deformed.  I’m astonished that their marketing department — after all the hoopla over Ralph Lauren and Crystal Renn — made the decision to distort women’s bodies in this way. One would assume that after the Ralph Lauren flap, image-makers would take a chill pill.

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