Dove beauty ads retouched?

Were Dove Real Beauty adverts retouched?

They were the ground-breaking adverts that made British women proud of their bodies - whatever shape or size - but according to reports the ad campaigns featuring 'real' women were in fact retouched.

Dove's Campaign For Real Beauty adverts made it their mission to photograph women in their underwear with curves and cellulite, rather than the traditional skinny models. However, an expert who worked on the photographs has claimed that he retouched them.

Pascal Dangin, a well-known retoucher of fashion pictures who does regular work for fashion magazines and fashion brands including Dior and Balenciaga, has claimed the Dove models had a little help and were far from the real deal.

In an interview with New Yorker magazine, Dangin claims he altered the photographs heavily.

Referring to the four-year-old campaign, Dangin said: 'Do you know how much retouching was on that? But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone's skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.'

Dove has this morning issued a statement which reads: 'Dove's mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by widening the definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves. Dove strives to portray women by accurately depicting their shape, size, skin color and age.



'The 'real women' ad referenced in recent media coverage was created and produced entirely by Ogilvy, the Dove brand’s advertising agency, from start to finish and the women's bodies were not digitally altered.


'Pascal Dangin worked with photographer Annie Leibovitz (Ogilvy has never employed Mr Dangin on the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty), who did the photography for the launch of the Dove ProAge campaign, a new campaign within the Campaign for Real Beauty.

There was an understanding between Dove and Ms Leibovitz that the photos would not be retouched - the only actions taken were the removal of dust from the film and minor color correction.'

Leibovitz herself, meanwhile, has added: 'Let's be perfectly clear - Pascal does all kinds of work - but he is primarily a printer - and only does retouching when asked to. The idea for Dove was very clear at the beginning. There was to be NO retouching and there was not.'