Ralph Lauren: A Prime Example

Former model for Ralph Lauren, Filippa Hamilton, explains her relationship with the designer company. After eight years with Lauren, Hamilton was "terminated" from her services based on her weight.

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"They said I couldn't fit in their clothes anymore," she tells TODAY's Ann Curry. The letter to her agent from Lauren simply said, "We're terminating your services because you don't fit into the sample clothes that you need to wear."

"They fired me because they said I was overweight and couldn't fit into their clothes anymore," she said.

"I was working with them since I was fifteen years old, so I considered them my second family. I was very hurt about this."


Astonishingly, Filippa is a gorgeous 5-foot-10, 120 pound healthy woman, who was manipulated in her photos and fired when because she wasn't unhealthily underweight.

Filippa Hamilton in a recent Ralph Lauren ad.
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"I saw my face on this extremely skinny girl -- which is not me, she told New York Daily News, "It's very sad, I think, that Ralph Lauren would do something like that."

"It makes me think that Ralph Lauren wants to have this kind of image -- and it's not healthy, it's not right."

Ralph Lauren admitted to the manipulation of these images. They released a statement arguing that she was released "as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us.

A body image expert, Leslie Goldman, told NBC News, "The thought of this model being too fat is laughable. When you see her, she is extremely tall and extremely thin. She has the perfect model's body, but apparently not perfect enough."

"The image is a gross distortion of how she really looks and which we fear will be extremely damaging to her," Geoffrey Menin, Hamilton's lawyer, told NBC News. "They photoshopped her in a way that, for me, is grotesque and makes her look like a cartoon. The trouble is that it's damaging to her. Who wants to hire somebody that looks like that?"

Many people were thoroughly disturbed by the revolting actions displayed by Ralph Lauren, and many had something to say. The editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, Kate White, also agreed that the misrepresentations are ridiculous and quickly depleting, referring to it as a "vicious cycle."

"It really starts with the sample clothes. They've downsized. They're now like a two or a four. In some degree it relates to the Kate [Kate Moss] era. Before then, supermodels like Cindy Crawford and Christie Brinkley -- they were really curvy. But they got skinnier and skinnier. The clothes got smaller. So it creates this cycle where you have to fit in the clothes to get the job, and then the models get smaller and that's who we have to use in the fashion stores."

"I think women have to protest," White continued, "and back it up, because sometimes women say they want real girls in stories, but often those stories don't rate as well, and if you put a heavy celebrity on the cover, it may not sell as well. Women have to complain and then back it up with their actions -- with their pocketbooks."

The fact is obvious that Ralph Lauren displays the dysfunctional actions that can directly impact society and bring on distorted body image.

"And it's not a good example. When you see this picture young women will look at this and think it's normal, and it's not," Filippa said. "I think they owe American women an apology, a big apology. I'm very proud of what I look like and I think a role model should look healthy.