Megacorp Unileaver is fighting back against claims that its ads for Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign were retouched, despite what professional photo retoucher Pascal Dangin told The New Yorker. They’re in full-court defense mode, which means, of course, they’re issuing a statement with their side of things. It reads in part: “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.” Not cellulite, freckles, fat rolls, hair stubble, vericose veins, or oily skin.

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.

[Marie Claire]