By Hugh Davies, The Daily Telegraph
Pictures of Kate Winslet digitally altered to give her supermodel proportions have prompted fresh debate about the “tidying up” of photographs of celebrities.
Experts said virtually all glossy pictures of stars these days, except those snapped by paparazzi, were digitally altered. But the Winslet shots sit a trifle incongruously with the accompanying interview, in which she berates women for equating sex appeal with being thin.
Winslet said: “What is sexy? All I know from the men I’ve ever spoken to is that they like girls to have an arse on them, so why is it that women think in order to be adored they have to be thin? I just don’t understand that way of thinking. I’m certainly not a sex symbol who doesn’t eat.”
Winslet added: “I’m completely physically comfortable with who I am and I have no particular issues any more, and I don’t feel I have to run around waving my flag about the female body any more.”
GQ staff, with airbrush expertise, carefully slimmed down Winslet’s legs and straightened up the line of her stomach to washboard flatness.
Dylan Jones, editor of GQ, said: “I don’t think we’re hoodwinking the public. Way back in the 1940s Hollywood was doing its utmost to make its glamour girls look as sexy as possible. With digital, we can make this art more seamless.
“These days there are two types of magazine pictures – paparazzi shots, or heavily-styled glossy pictures which have everything done to them to make someone as beautiful and sexy as possible.
“This is common practice everywhere, from films to videos. Three years ago we altered a part of the clothing [underwear] worn by Kylie Minogue, with her permission. Everything is done with the star’s approval.
“I interviewed Kate for the piece. She was, of course, fully clothed, but it was obvious that she had changed a lot. I could tell she had fabulous legs and a great body.
“Almost no picture that appears in GQ, or any other magazine or newspaper, has not been altered in some way. Agents and publicists have much greater control over the image rights to their clients, so they want to make sure they are seen in the best possible light.”
Bob Martin, production director of the retouching department of Metro Imaging in Soho, central London, said: “I would say 95 per cent of pictures have been altered. Those we work on range from minimum clean-ups to major surgery.”
He works with leading celebrity photographers including David Bailey and Mario Testino, whose pictures of Elizabeth Hurley were subjected to the process for the cover of Vogue last month.
Hurley, in silk bra and matching knickers, was shown with elegant long legs poised over a piano as the singer, looking half his age, grinned back in a red rhinestone suit.
Mr Martin said: “We work to a photographer’s brief. But, in fact, the advances in technology over the last 10 years mean that you can create women from nothing.
“There are no limits, from slender legs to everything else, and it does no major harm. I can’t think people are being conned.”
Only days after the British edition of GQ magazine admitted that it had altered pictures of Kate Winslet to make her look more svelte, Women’s Wear Daily has quoted a spokesman for Harper’s Bazaar as saying that it substituted fashion director Mary Alice Stephenson’s body for Winslet’s on its January cover photo of the actress.
[url=http://www.discoverkate.com/gallery/details.php?image_id=5218]Winslet’s GQ Cover[/url]