U.K. retailer Debenhams says it will no longer airbrush the bodies of the models in its lingerie ads and catalog images. "We want to help customers feel confident about their figures without bombarding them with unattainable body images," says the company's head lingerie buyer, Sharon Webb. “As well as being a positive from a moral point of view, it ticks the economic boxes as well. Millions of pounds a year are spent by organisations retouching perfectly good images." Debenhams provided the above images — "retouched" and "unretouched" — as examples.
Webb says the retailer "as a rule" only airbrushes "minor things like pigmentation or stray hair," which means the company will continue retouching its lingerie images — just not very aggressively, and purportedly not with a view to altering its models' body shape or size. The announced ban only applies to lingerie images. Why not stop retouching all your pictures?
Debenhams is calling on its competitors to change their retouching policies, too. "We want other retailers to follow suit and encourage positive body-image through minimal retouching rather than bombarding them with unattainable body images," said a spokesperson. Debenhams is the same company that recently cast its catalog with disabled models and models whose bodies are rarely seen in fashion.
Katy Perry just nabbed her first U.S. Vogue cover. [Vogue]
Grace Coddington cooked a roast and a potato gratin — dishes "any Vogue person shouldn't be making," as Coddington put it, "because it's incredibly bad for you" — with Elettra Weidemann on her online cooking show. [YouTube]
The Paris Review collaborated on a line of men's swim trunks with the label Orlebar Brown. They are based on old Paris Review cover art, available exclusively at Barney's, and they cost $320 (or four times what an actual subscription to the magazine will set you back). "We wanted a way to celebrate our 60th birthday. Sixty is ancient for a literary magazine. These trunks made us feel young," says editor Lorin Stein. [TFS, Barney's]
Here is a very blurry photo of what is allegedly Robert Pattinson's first Christian Dior ad, not that you could tell. [DFR]
Carolyn Murphy is on the cover of Vogue Thailand, which is — no offense — one of those Vogues we kind of tend to forget about. But it looks great! [FGR]
• The Department of Labor has announced it will fund $2.5 million in grant money to organizations that will work with the Bangladeshi government to improve safety standards at garment factories in the South Asian nation. [WWD]
• Mulberry says it has a solution to the problem of its slowing sales and falling profit: higher prices. The company's 2012 profits were 28% lower than for 2011, but raising prices 12% in November and introducing more handbags priced over $1600 has apparently been successful in Asia. But the rising prices were apparently one reason creative director Emma Hill left the company. [BoF]
• Marc Jacobs is launching a cosmetics collection exclusively with Sephora. And along with the usual eyeliners, shadows, powders, and foundations comes a surprise: makeup for men. The Marc Jacobs Boy Tested, Girl Approved product line includes a "brow tamer," a concealer, and lip balm that are intended to be unisex. Also, apropos of nothing, Marc Jacobs volunteered that he had a hair transplant in the interview. [WWD]
• Coty's I.P.O. went just okay. The perfume giant's stock price fell from $17.50 to $17.30 during the day's trading. [NYTimes]
• After losing tens of millions to an embarrassing product recall, weathering a bunch of bad press about its weird founder, and losing a C.E.O., Lululemon has an idea how to pursue future growth: targeting men. Men's wear is currently only 20% of its business, but the active wear brand sees itself opening standalone men's stores by 2016. [Bloomberg]
• Gilt is planning to host a month-long sale of designer goods up to 90% off in Louisville, Kentucky. The sale starts June 28 and the company picked the location for its proximity to one of Gilt's largest distribution centers. [Racked]