Was Demi Moore Ralph-Laurenized on "W" mag cover, with missing hip-flesh?

Update: story updated here on December 28, 2009, to include a response from legal representatives for Ms. Moore, and W Magazine.

Click here for higher-rez image.

Anthony Citrano says,

Being an observer (and occasional shooter) of all things fashion, I was just was looking at December's "W" cover [above and left] with Demi Moore.
In the interview she says she'd rather be a "puma" than a "cougar" - but apparently, the clumsy Photoshop artist decided she was looking too strong in the cover shots - and awkwardly chopped off part of her left thigh. Note how the upper part of her left thigh/hip is basically missing (our right). Did she have some sort of weird car accident that left a wedge of meat missing from it? The fabric even magically floats above the missing thigh. Ha!
Hard to believe that made it to the cover.

I feel about this the same way I did about the Ralph Lauren model. I don't buy (in the high fashion context, anyway) that there's necessarily too much "Photoshopping", or too much of a drive toward uber-skinny (which really seems to be a complex thumbing-of-the-collective nose at western indulgence by the fashion industry - another conversation entirely) but simply that it's bad art (in the sense such mistakes clearly interfere with the photographers goal - let's call it "aesthetus interruptus").
When I look at it I can't appreciate it because I feel like there's a piece of dirt stuck in my eyeball. A neon arrow pointing at the screwup. When I see images like this I:
1. feel bad for the photographer;
2. feel bad for the subject;
3. feel like someone, somewhere, is a dumbass.
Doesn't anyone look at these pictures before they go to press?
Fashion designers, art directors, and yes, even we photographers are often trying to be fantastical and aspirational, not necessarily realistic -- but when they make clumsy mistakes, completely miss the mark, and end up making people look like mutants, I get to make fun.

Previously:

Anonymous

hard to believe that made it to the cover? really? this kind of thing shows up in and on magazines like W ALL THE TIME. the ralph lauren incident was popularized because of the bogus cease and desist notice, and you can’t expect that it was SO popularized that the industry is going to make drastic changes anytime soon.
Anonymous

If you showed me that picture alone, I would have trouble picking it as Demi Moore…good lord, have they super-modified that picture or what? I suppose think they know that real men prefer stick figure models who look like a skeleton draped in skin, with a permanent scowling expression, who looks like they’d die if they had to smile…
wylkyn

The clothing isn’t in line? That’s not spandex. It’s a draped fabric. It has thickness, and it is also hanging loosely on her hips. Look at her waist. Her left hip (on our right) is angled away from the camera.

I’ll admit that it’s likely there was some photoshop work being done in this photo, but not because of the “evidence” that’s being pointed out. bbonyx has it right. Legs bend at the hip, and fabric drapes. Bodies are not made of straight lines, and perspectives can be confusing.
IronEdithKidd

It looks like they also left out some of her left inner thigh, air-brushed out her upper arm and forearm definition, any trace of veins on her hands, and added a second layer of collar bone. Freaky.
Boondocker

Compare to this shot.

The thigh is not the only problem. They lifted her boobs way up, and it looks like they slimmed her waist, too.

Funny thing is, that picture makes it look like she doesn’t even carry a lot of weight on her thighs.
Alessandro Cima

That leg might be slightly bent at the knee, along with the cloth draping, that might create the illusion of missing flesh. But my god, is this even Demi Moore? I don’t recognize her at all. She looks like she’s a character from Left 4 Dead.

But come on now; quite clearly these magazines are doing these covers on purpose to create some very lucrative outrage.
Anonymous

She been labottomized!
Anonymous

Looks like they ‘shopped part of her arm in place of her thigh….
Anonymous

its done on purpose, a brilliant marketing strategy!
nutbastard

whats more is the models end up looking worse for all the photoshopping as often as they end up looking better.
Steaming Pile

The lines don’t even line up. That wouldn’t even fly on FARK.
Anonymous

As for missing chunks of hip, lack of vein definition on wrists/hands, noone cried “Photoshop of Horrors” for this covershot:
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/01_04/DemiMoore_468x622.jpg

In regards to her *too skinny to be real thighs*, Demi has been trimming down consistently…consider this shot from TWO YEARS ago:
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/01_04/DemiMooreSplitV_468x441.jpg

And finally, for those who think her waist was photoshopped away…she already has a thin waist, and the outfit itself seems to help accentuate her figure. Think of Beyonce’s figure in her “Sweet Dreams” video.
acitrano

As I said in the article, I don’t have a problem with PhotoShop. We all know that every image spends some time there before it gets to print; even if it’s as simple as cropping and color balancing, PS is an essential part of any photography workflow. My main point was that this seemed to me a rather obvious flub and I was surprised it got to print.

But I was also surprised to see some of you suggest it might be a product of body angle, various geometric or optical anomalies, or space aliens. Well, I’ve photographed a lot of women from a lot of angles, and I’ve *never* seen the thigh-dent configuration presented here. I’m not saying it’s impossible – just that I’ve got a fairly well-trained eye and can’t imagine how such a presentation would be possible.

I’d guess that what happened here (other than the obvious PS work-up any cover shot gets) is that the retoucher “cloned” and/or “liquified” the space between her left wrist and left hip in order to narrow her shape – and screwed up. Working deep in the pixel-trees, s/he neglected to step back and take a fresh look at the picture-forest once finished with that edit. As others have said, it looks like the sign-off process was flubbed as well. Look, we all make mistakes – but you expect publications like W would catch this before it hit the newsstands (has it?)

I present this image for your consideration:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zigzaglens/4115584292/sizes/o/

If this isn’t a case of PS-cloning-gone-stupid, how does one explain her hip-flesh flowing directly into (fusing to) the fabric?

Anyway, I totally agree with Xeni that Demi is a beautiful woman just the way she is – certainly someone who needs a hell of a lot less PS help (as in, none?) compared to (most of) the rest of us.

My main concern now is the thousands of young, impressionable women who will rush out to have meat triangles removed from their thighs.
Anonymous

As a portrait photographer I am used to shooting people of a variety of sizes. I shot fashion shots also but I feel like most magazines go way too far in making a woman look skinny. Demi Moore – chopped leg/ raised leg whatever aside is just not this bone skinny. They’ve made her look ridiculous. She’s beautiful at the size she is – all you need is some light handed clean up and maybe some adjustments so that the angles aren’t distorted. I also have clients that relax once they realize the one or two pounds on their arms they’re concerned about can go away in PS – so ok – good use. Magazines take this too far over the line.
Anonymous

Sorry guys, I agree photoshopped covers are a plague on society and there definitely HAS been a lot done to smooth, tighten and distort to this image but it’s pretty freakin clear that when you trace the line from her left hip to her right hip its just on an angle. Take in her shoulders as well.
bigbill

yawn. mert and marcus, the photographers who shot this cover, do most of their own retouching and oversee all the rest. whether this is demi’s real leg or not, it looks weird and wasn’t corrected. beyond that, who cares? she looks incredible, thigh or no thigh.
Cunning

So it’s not photoshopped and she really is that skinny? Thank God. For a moment there, I thought W magazine was promoting unrealistic images of women.
Pantograph

By the way, the story title reads suspiciously like “Did Glenn Beck rape and murder a girl in 1990?”
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I don’t care whether you think it’s a cocked hip rather than a photoshopping glitch. I’m still looking at the waist-to-hip ratio and the hip line, and they’re still wrong.
demidan

How pathetic are we as a group (not us Boingers but America in general), that we need someone as lovely as her “tuned up” by a photoshop hack to sell magazines?
- Lilith_Snow
  
  Very well said. Clearly she’s done some work on her body, herself over the years, but she chose all that. Having such a bad edit palmed off on her and the public probably pisses her off (even though she’s probably quite used to it on another level).
Anonymous

I don’t think this is a result of photoshop, just bad wardrobe placement. The sash covers the part of her leg where it bends at the hip. It LOOKS like it was a bad photoshop job, but it’s anatomically correct.

Call it bad wardrobe placement or bad photography, but I don’t think it’s a result of photoshop.

I won’t argue that she’s too skinny though.
Anonymous

musta toi ei nÃ¤ytÃ¤ yhtÃ¤Ã¤n oudolta :P

i think that doesn’t look weird at all but that’s only my opinion

-A girl from Finland-
Anonymous

Is it photoshopped? No idea. I do know that when I stand in that pose my left arm does NOT sit higher than my right. Its the reverse. I know this because I’m a woman and I tried it.
darren

There should be a law that forces magazines to reveal the original unmodified images that they cut-and-paste together to compose their covers.
chrisrosa

It does look odd, but perhaps her hips are just tilted, one side higher than the other?
- JDubsMontreal
  
  Uh, no. You need to look where the top of her left wrist is. It’s either a well-healed old shark bite or a photoshop ‘phosaster’.
- funnygarbageman
  
  thank you, at least I’m not the only sane one left
Anonymous

I don’t believe that the thigh is corrected. It lines up just fine with the corset area above it. She’s very thin, and it looks like they either photoshopped her waist or that outfit forces it in (because people that skinny don’t have a large hip/waist ratio), but her legs look fine. The illusion of a missing chunk is caused by the x-draped wad of fabric around her hips, which has a lot of volume.
Beneath the bottom section of the draped cloth is the area where the leg joint changes direction under the hip bone. I have had a lot of figure drawing classes and seen naked people in various situations. While she is definitely undernourished, her legs look pretty normal for a woman of her size.
SamSam

I too think that this may well be her real hips. In that position, there really is a dip before the thigh muscle starts. It’s hard to tell though, so I won’t be betting any money either way.
Anonymous

Demi Moore has always been a amazingly beautiful women, and has be able to keep herself up for all these years, I agree she is a bit skinny then still I think she still looks beautiful. I am just hoping she in all her efforts to keep her beauty will make sure to take care of her health which is the most important thing to do.
The best to you Demi, you are still Gorgeous!
Anonymous

Damn shame. The Mad Photoshopper at W didn’t have to call into question this gorgeous woman’s efforts to keep herself attractive. All they had to do was to take another five minutes to ACTUALLY HANG THE FABRIC PROPERLY.
blueelm

Woah. Now that’s just messed up. No even if her left knee was bent and raised while she was thrusting her right hip up it wouln’t be like that. That’s just a complete fail. It looks almost like the legs are from another shot. If some one were walking around with these proportions it would stand out… and not in a good way.
Anonymous

no one looks at it BEFORE it goes to press.

EVERY MAN looks at it AFTER it comes out; on the stands.

HO HO HO
roc97007

How stupid. It’s a great outfit, Moore looks good, and they spoil it with a screw-up that a 15-year-old “fake artist” would make.
Myatu

I wasn’t so much “shocked” (or whatever) about her chopped thighs, but that she’d gotten so *skinny*.

I mean, look at her thin arms, her immensely protruding collarbones and her jawline.

That’s one heck of a difference from the picture Boondocker showed us.

Gosh Ashton, go get her a BK super-size meal!
Teller

Not photoshopped. Sold to kebab stand.
- David Pescovitz
  
  @Teller, LOL!!! Nice one.
gollux

That gap between her right arm, the line from her upper hip does not flow through the draped cloth to her leg where it emerges under her hand. Sorry, but it was the first thing to get focus before I even read anything. What psychadelic drugs are they smoking in that art department that allowed that to pass. Almost as good as this…

http://www.kontraband.com/pics/20354/Flattering-Photo-FAIL/
jaytkay

Pretty much all fashion pics are Photoshop work as much as camera work.

If you are curious how common it is, see last year’s New Yorker profile of Pascal Dangin, “the premier retoucher of fashion photographs”.
Anonymous

At this point of photoshop and agencies, they might as well just place the Model, Actress on the exact same body. No problems with inconsistencies and issues like this.
Mitch

It’s bad enough that the fashion industry uses emaciated
models so that women with healthier body types feel fat by
comparison. Removing additional flesh electronically is going
a step too far.

It promotes an unreasonable and unhealthy sense of aesthetics
of the human body. It does NOT work as a critique of Western
excess because spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on
a garment is itself a manifestation of Western excess.
EscapingTheTrunk

It looks like there’s a chunk missing from her left thigh. Check out where the fabric parts on her left (our right) leg. Now look down at the point on her left leg where her left hand touches it. Now look up again. Now look down. Those two points aren’t connected. The human thigh doesn’t taper in above and bulge out below, it bulges toward the hip and tapers along the length of the thigh. This flaw would be more observable if we had her other thigh to compare it to, but it has been cleverly hidden behind the letter M. Even if all her weight were on her left leg with her right tilted up or knee bent, her silhouette would remain the same.

Somebody with better ‘shop skills than mine could probably take a silhouette from one of her recent photos and try to re-create the effect seen here without taking the chunk out. If you could get a decent mock-up of her body, then simulate this posture, and get the same effect, I’d be more inclined to believe this was her natural shape.
- bbonyx
  
  Yeah, or you could just follow my links where I did exactly that with these pics and see the anatomy is fine. People are falling prey to simple visual deception.
  - EscapingTheTrunk
    
    You’re right, I totally should have followed the links.
    
    Though being a woman, and having occasionally seen myself naked, I thought I might not need to.
BookGuy

Regarding the point of something like this would get approved: I work in publishing*, and I’m not surprised by this. One would think the cover would be super high-priority, and in theory it is, but in reality, anywhere from five to a dozen people sign off on these, and it becomes a matter of, “Eh, I’m busy, and x other people are looking at this, so it’s O.K. for me to just glance at it and sign off on it.” Plus everybody’s still trying to finish things that go on the inside of the publication, so the cover is just one more thing on a list of 1,000 things to do before the file-to-printer date. I’ve seen some fantastically stupid stuff get printed on covers–like misspellings of simple words in size 48-point font.

Which doesn’t excuse it. It’s still dumb, and whenever it happens, everyone involved vows to be more careful with the covers…for a few issues, until they get busy again.

*I’ve never worked on anything with a circulation as large as I presume W’s to be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the process were similar to the smaller-run stuff I’ve worked on.
- watman
  
  @BookGuy
  
  This is not my experience. (Not to say that mistakes don’t happen but) the fashion and decor magazine teams, especially, that I have worked with have agonised over the covers and discussed and tweaked to the point where you want to say “Enough! We have to get to the printers or we will miss our printing and distribution slots.” But then I haven’t worked in the US. Maybe it’s different.
- morgonmae
  
  So true, BookGuy. I can also imagine a higher-up swooping in with last-minute changes just before press.
Gloria

“Noticing every little imperfection like this is the EXACT reason that photos get retouched.”

Noticing women’s imperfections — and calling on them — is pretty far from noticing imperfections in Photoshop skills.

“This just made me sad at all the savage comments.”

Sad for … magazine editors? Indeed, those poor things.
bbonyx

No, I’m not blind. I actually analyzed the pic. Look at the examples I provided. Your eyes are deceiving you.

Read my comments and Wylkyn’s. Look at some other pics of women with their hips shifted. There is nothing wrong with that portion of the pic.
DC

My wife and I are expecting a baby girl — and one of my worries is all the pressure she’ll have to be unnaturally thin, and all the body issues, eating disorders, etc. that come with it.

While I hope to be a good, loving father and instill self-confidence and self-worth in her; it’s frustrating to see even the ‘beautiful’ people that many young girls look up too aren’t ‘good enough’ and get digitally modified to create an unattainable, and unhealthy idea of beauty. Will it ever stop?
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I have to disagree with bbonyx and go with Xeni’s and Anonymous’s view of it: that’s a Photoshop blunder, not a natural feature. It’s not just because Moore’s hips aren’t cocked far enough to account for the depth or orientation of the indentation, though they aren’t. The real tip-off is her waist.

Compare the high-res version of the W cover with this photo of Moore taken at this year’s Golden Globe awards. Notice how much wider her waist is in relation to the width of her hips in the Golden Globe photo. Her arms are plumper too, and she’s got a soft curve and some faint creases at her armpit, which she definitely doesn’t have in the W cover image.

Whoever retouched the W cover image narrowed Moore’s waist, then gave her right hip (our left) a more pronounced curve at the top to compensate for the gap this opened up. They also thinned her arms amd got rid of that small soft curve and creases at her armpits, and appear to have done some kind of fine-grained blurring or despeckling operation on the rest of her skin to get rid of minor flaws.
toxonix

I thought she had a bit more meat on her. MMMM MEAT.
wooee

tilt of hip
rose bush

while i can and do appreciate art and aesthetics, those things do NOT concern me anywhere NEAR how women are portrayed in the media and arts. this type of thing just continues to perpetuate the objectification of women AND place parameters (very small tight ones) on what is and what isn’t beauty. I understand men are photo shopped and airbrushed in the media but nowhere NEAR the amount women are. men also are not judged by the same ‘standards’ women are.

forget the broken nice line of the body. concentrate on women being human beings that come in all shapes and sizes.

you either like someone or you don’t. it shouldn’t depend upon the size of their upper thigh

i say enough of this shite. tell the media to just KNOCK IT OFF
jaytkay

Here’s a time-lapse video of fashion retouching, making a pretty model look even better. The digital nose-job is interesting.
- Sekino
  
  Anyone else notices how *noses* are even more loathed than hips?
  
  Funny that the only people I have met IRL who needed surgery for deviated septums were hockey players and boxers while in Hollywood, it’s an epidemic among young, dainty women.
Xeni Jardin

I agree that Demi Moore looks totally awesome, either way! She is a truly beautiful woman.
thequickbrownfox

Have to say, after much thought on the subject, this is no Photoshop tweak but a simple case of the anomalies that arise when rendering a 3D figure on a 2D plane.

“Foreshortening” is what the artists of pencil and paintbrush call it, the need to suggest volume in an oddly positioned aspect of the figure.

Usually achieved through tonal shading or cross-hatching, or even redrawing (retouching?) to make the figure seem more logically depicted.

The camera lens has no such sensibility.
limepies

just for the record, here’s a shot of a runway model, already skinny as all hell, wearing the exact same outfit:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2646/3972109688_2ec51ab8b8.jpg

since apparently we can’t all agree on how the fabric should lie, here’s how it looks *in action*. notice how it’s not floating weirdly off her hips?
Anonymous

there’s nothing wrong with her thighs or whatever. have you seen a naked woman?
arkizzle / Moderator

Similar pose, compare:
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/01_04/DemiMoore_468x622.jpg
- certron
  
  In this case, Moore is less.
  - orwellian
    
    Lol, certron, lol.
Birko

@109 I agree. It’s just a bad job. Next…
Anonymous

Maybe the Russian cannibals ate that part of her thigh.

Gives a new meaning to the phrase “She’s a tasty dish!”
Anonymous

That missing piece was probably the most erotic.
Photoshopped women remind me of the airbrushed “perfection” of 1970′s Playboy models…boring and artificial.
I want to see a woman with all of her “imperfections.”
The more real she is, the more desirable.
Anonymous

Here some hip and thigh and tilt and all:
http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/uag/Art-Anytime-Page/Lochoff-pages/pages/15-Boticelli-Venus.htm
Anonymous

That’s what they get for airbrushing stars’ photos. It’s all fake. Us, the consumers, we eat it up and demand perfection from celebrities because when we see them as less than perfect (fat, cellulite, flabby arms, flabby bellies, etc) we criticize them for it. It’s like we always want the opposite of what we’re getting just so we can complain and whine about not getting what we want. As an actor, I know the film biz from behind the scenes and it’s all an illusion. Everybody’s in on the conspiracy, and that’s to sell you a product or market a product. To get our money, they use controversy and claim that this star “might” be dating that star, just to get a reaction out of us. A reaction they hope leads to shoving some product down our throats. It’s all so comical, to tell you the truth. Actors, even in the public eye, are always acting and playing a role so they can better sell their products to us. This Demi Moore photo shows how stupid it is for anyone to buy these magazines because everything is fake. Everything. They’re just trying to be interesting and I found that out a long time ago. But, whatever. Keep buying crap magazines like all these. If it has an actor on the cover, you’re seeing a different version of so and so.
BoomRShine

No. There is no photoshopping of the thigh/hip in this photo. I agree with bbonyx (see comment #22). The thigh/hip area is natural. The “dimple” is a consequence of the pose.

I found a photo of an old sculpture of a female model in the classic contrapposto pose:
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/385/modeler.jpg

Although the model is much heavier, she still has the dimple in her thigh/hip area.

I went a step further and traced the female’s outline, much like bbonyx did with the Demi photo. Then, I compared the two:
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/5796/comparisong.jpg

Very similar!

If the model had been thinner, you’d even see a much closer match.

Good work bbonyx!
theLadyfingers

The handwringing about fashion magazines: Why do we care about people shallow and stupid enough to be interested in them, exactly?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Because drooling over gadgets is so much more profound?
  - theLadyfingers
    
    Sure, all marketing is much alike, but what I’m asking is there a fashion magazine that anybody with even a trace of enlightenment doesn’t regard as some kind of oppressively proscriptive catalogue of insecurities?
    
    If so, who buys them?
Anonymous

Never heard of contrapposto?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrapposto
Anonymous

Actually, surprisingly, I think it’s possible this could be ‘real’… she is tilting and thus her right hip is extended out, leaving possibility that her left hip tilting inward and we are not seeing the ‘hip flexor’ bending underneath the wrap!?

I’m surprised that I believe this could be the case, but I do… regardless of the fact that she is obviously uber skinny!
Brett Myers

bbonyx is right, that’s a normal indent on a woman (with a narrow pelvis and high hip bones). You can kind of see it on the opposite side in this photo (wearing bikini):

http://media.photobucket.com/image/demi%20moore%20strip%20tease/lokynha/listal%20-%20strippers/01-demimoore.jpg

There’s definitely been some pshop work done on the photo – she’s been toned, neck lengthened, waist narrowed, arms and legs slimmed, and I’d bet that gold loin cloth was aftermarket, but the missing piece of the hip isn’t as drastic as you think.
Anonymous

Unfortunately, this is perhaps a case of making an assumption before gathering the facts. Not sure if you talked to W yet, but the picture may be about as unretouched as my face. That anatomy is eminently possible. Demi Moore is very thin, but she is also muscular. In that case, her hips could be very taut, but her thigh muscles could swell beyond. Also, her stance could cause as smoothe arc on the right hip, but an indentation on the left. So could be the way it was.
Anonymous

If they are going to try to turn back the hands of time on Demi, then do it right! Make her flat chested and with one wonky eye! :D
Anonymous

Well, I have to ask why would Demi Moore approve this photo? First if she does look anything at all as she appears and at her age she should be proud of every curb she’s got! Why would anyone think she looks better with that abnormally thin and squared hip? I agree that we have gone too far with alterations of stars as much as going too far on terrible mug shots with augmented imperfections of those we do not like…. I guess I am happy NOT to be famous these days…
Gloria

Is it just me or does she kind of look like Jennifer Connelly on that cover? It kind of amazes me how they airbrush the crap of people’s faces so much on magazines that you really don’t recognize them anymore.
Anonymous

looks like she’s wearing a “bustle” on her right hip. Did bustles return to fashion unbeknownest to me???
Pantograph

Dammit. Photoshop fail. They forgot to correct her figure to reflect the amount of blubber the average customer carries.
Brett Myers

Also, nose stretched, eyes embiggened, jawline squared, I’m beginning to have doubts about the shoulder-pad things, I wanna say they added more hair, too.

One nice touch – they appear to have left her a few grays.
potilas

Gee, What a fuss this has caused! I agree on bbonyx, might aswell be her real proportions on the thigh area. The hanging cloth makes the illusion of a photoshop error stronger. On numerous occasions iÂ´ve noticed how bent and weird a personsÂ´ anatomy might appear to be in a photograph, if you really start to examine it.

But still, looking at this photo as a whole, itÂ´s pretty clear that somebody photoshopped the hell outta her.
Anonymous

:/ what in the world is with these people? Honestly, now she looks not only obviuosly photoshopped but out of proportion. For God’s sake! What do you guys have against a woman with hips! I’d be pissed if I had a picture of me taken and someone decided to photoshop my hips to be smaller! Photoshop little blemishes out, sure, why not? It’s not like those won’t go away anyways… but your hips and legs? Why can’t we use photoshop for more… important things…
Takashi Omoto

Well, guess more people share my opinion. Hipwise, there isn’t anything wrong with the picture, albeit there was some heavy work done everywhere else and the cropping is a bit hideous. The fabric isn’t “hanging loosely”, it’s molded with some wire structure or with a thicker lump of fabric, and ties along her curves. The effect of empty space is exacerbated by the M on Demi covering the other side.
Anonymous

she is still beatuful for 47. I bet better than most 20′s or 30 years old.
Anonymous

They cut & pasted the whole thing…the only part that is Demi is the face!
Anonymous

She is starting to look as freaky as Cher.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Gloria, if Demi Moore had a big chunk missing out of one hip, the world would know about it already.

Nobody’s ragging on Moore’s natural good looks. There’s no question that she’s got them, or that she’s kept them well into middle age. She works hard for that. She also has great genes.

Here’s my point: she’s always had a trim waist and hips. What she doesn’t have is the exaggeratedly narrow waist and curved hip line shown on that cover. Check it out:

http://images.askmen.com/galleries/actress/demi-moore/pictures/demi-moore-picture-1.jpg

http://stupidcelebrities.net/wp-content/738.jpg

http://www.ugo.com/movies/nude-scenes/images/entries/demi-moore.jpg

Notice that the second of those three photos is the same one Anonymous used to bolster his argument.

Her real waist-to-hip ratio is a lot closer to 1:1 than you see on that cover, and her real hipline is nearly diagonal, not curved like the shoulder of a winebottle. There’s nothing wrong with her real figure, but the one she’s shown with on the cover of W isn’t the one she has.
- Gloria
  
  “Nobody’s ragging on Moore’s natural good looks.”
  
  That’s what I was saying. I was responding to Kamill1′s concerns. See above.
bbonyx

While I can’t speak for her arms or waist being “thinned” there is nothing wrong with her hips. She has her right hip kicked out, which causes her left hip and left thigh to meet in a concave curve.

I’ve overlaid the pics with the shape of her outline here:
Demi annotated

And just the shape here:
Demi shape

Look at the spacing and A and B, along with how high her left hand is compared to the right, this is caused by her hips being shifted and her left leg being kicked out. It also shows the disparity of the alignment of each side.

Maybe if you’ve never seen a woman naked you can’t envision this, but it’s perfectly normal.
- Anonymous
  
  Your 100% correct.
  
  I’m a designer and artist and have taken years of life drawing. This particular pose(contrapposto)is correct. The muscle is leaving the hip at the proper location due to the angle, the arm is recessing slightly, the cloth is simply making it look odd.
- apoxia
  
  My hips look like that when I’m standing straight ‘cos of my scoliosis.
Drunken Economist

Actually, that’s just how Photoshop CS4 works.

Adobe would tell you that that’s from their ‘Pound of Flesh Filter’ and that it’s a feature and not a bug.
Anonymous

I doubt any of that body is hers! I think they just stuck her face on someone else’s body. BTW her face looks pretty weird too.
Anonymous

this shit goes down every day

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/
Anonymous

Hee hee…Demi Less.

;p
bbonyx

Oh, and the angle of her collar bones and shoulders also shows how tilted she is. Again, this pose and shape are totally normal. Sorry Xeni, your other two were brilliant victories, this one is a total fail.
- limepies
  
  are you completely blind? you seem to be missing the fact that the clothing isn’t in line with the flesh. it’s very clear, once you look at both, that there is something missing underneath, otherwise it wouldn’t be hanging off her hips in such a manner.
  - Anonymous
    
    No, there will be a fair bit of loft/volume when one gathers that much fabric as that dress has over the hip.
    
    Also, look at the angle of her left thigh; it is NOT facing the camera, but is pointed to the side. This is a common trick for slimming the silhouette in fashion photography, as is the shifting of hips to minimize horizontal breadth.
bobrk

Here’s another opinion on the “why” of it:

http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_yourself/2009/11/fug_the_cover_demi_moore.html
Anonymous

yes,even her head looks a bit odd, almost as if they put her head on a different body, her neck looks too shopped. Fashionista mags are too much into airbrushing their models, they dont seem real anymore. i am sure if they could add bigger breasts they would. come on, Demi is 47 years old, she has wrinkles, she aint 20 anymore.
Anonymous

This is totally ridiculous. Demi is a good looking woman who seems to work very hard to maintain an excellent body. What’s with these stupid fashion mags? Why can’t they celebrate the fab body she has? They’ve lost their minds and credibility.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Oh, I give up. If bbonyx and the rest can’t see any difference between a real woman like Demi Moore and a glamorized image that’s well into the Uncanny Valley, nothing I can say will get through to them.

I will continue to privately make fun of bbonyx’s bit about “Maybe if you’ve never seen a woman naked you can’t envision this,” since bbonyx is standing up for the credibility of an image that could only be unretouched in a universe in which Adam Kubert does all his drawing from life.
slywy

The outer line of her left thigh isn’t aligned. She’s out of sync. Perhaps she’s encountered a Star Trek-style phenomenon.
DemiOblique

Some people touched on it correctly but…
being classically trained in art, I spent 4 years in anatomy classes and doing cadaver study. Im currently a professional designer and have used many photo retouching programs for over 15 yrs, so I suppose I could be considered an all around expert with this kind of thing.

Sorry to say it, but most people dont know what they are looking at. Its a combination of hard light, body angle and wadrobe. Everything is in its place people. They may have done some light brushing to remove skin blemishes or veins, but her hips were not “removed”. Her weight is shifted to her right hip and the left leg is coming forward which rolls the hip forward. I like the orange testis guy comment though…who at W let that typography mishap happen????
Anonymous

She has her weight on the one leg, throwing her hip out. I am photographer, I see this all the time.
kamill1

@Gloria

You misunderstood my comment, I think.

“Noticing women’s imperfections — and calling on them — is pretty far from noticing imperfections in Photoshop skills.”

I’m not even sure what you’re saying? My complaint is that there is slight oddness to her stance, and people are screaming Photoshopped. What if she just looks likes this? Then the cries of photoshop are really just slights at her figure.

“Sad for … magazine editors? Indeed, those poor things.”

Sad for Demi Moore if this photo ISNT retouched because people have jumped all over it when it could just be her natural shape, just the way shes standing. Fuck if she didn’t have a body image complex before, I hope she doesnt read BoingBoing. Geez.
- Gloria
  
  There’s a difference between thinking a woman looks weird because of angle and stance, and thinking her body looks weird, period. If it’s just the way she’s standing, she has nothing to worry about.
  
  There’s also a serious difference in the tone of discussion here. I’m betting 99% of the commentators here jumping on the possible Photoshop would do a 180 and apologize profusely if they realized Moore did indeed have a weird chunk out of her hip that she was super self-conscious about. I’m thinking of all the incredibly ugly, strident comments I’ve read online attacking a woman’s looks — those are the people you should be worrying about.
  
  But moreover, why are we worrying about Demi Moore’s sense of self-esteem? Demi Moore?! The woman is a wildly successful celebrity, who clearly isn’t shy about her body, and most importantly, has gone out and put herself on a magazine cover. Let me tell you, a woman who can be taken down by internet comments doesn’t go out and let herself be photographed for a national magazine cover. Women who have serious body image issues can barely stand having casual snapshots taken.
  
  “I hope she doesnt read BoingBoing. Geez.”
  
  I’m hoping I’m just missing a tongue-in-cheek tone here.
chgoliz

I honestly don’t get it. She doesn’t look like herself. If you hadn’t printed her name with the photo, I would have had no idea who it was. Her facial structure is so changed that I do not recognize her. I see a plastic Barbie doll with brown hair. That’s it.

And the “untouched” photos of her (linked in the comments) still make her look as if she’s on a starvation diet. In fact, now that I think about it, even Barbie has a more realistic body mass and shape than this woman.

Worse than Barbie…that’s a pretty damning statement.

Anyone who thinks this is beautiful has been brainwashed.
Mister N

The only way to justify the lack of flesh in that area is If you add an image of a zombie gnawing on her hip.
sf

ever stop and think it’s a whistle blower by the team forced to produce these things?
Patrick Arcee

With enough iterations we’ll eventually replace ‘Ralph-Laurenized’ with ‘Ralphed’.
Anonymous

Why is her waist narrower than her HEAD?
Loookie

Hey, Demi is almost 50. The media is just in a mad frenzy to cover up the ugly truth. This is no Photoshop snafu. It is, instead, the sad result of a low calcium diet. Yes, my fellow readers, Demi has suffered her first broken hip. It seems the time has come for her to join the ranks of Sally Field and Angela Landsbury. Soon you will see her schlepping osteoporosis medication and products for the incontinent members of our society. It only stands to reason that life with a man so much younger than herself would lead to such an injury. On the brighter side, Demi is now in negotiations with AARP magazine for the cover of next April’s “Hot Flash into Spring” cover.
Anonymous

Her right arm looks longer than her left hand. Now what? The wrap-around her dress, covering the area, clearly shows that it’s not flush against the skin of her thigh (top or bottom), so it has to be digital error of the photo.
Anonymous

I dont think her hip is missing. Her weight is shifted to the other side and it looks less on that side but it does not look missing.
IronEdithKidd

Limepies has accidentally uncovered the truth. Please compare the photo of the model with the “photo” of Demi. It very much appears as though a slightly different shot of the model was used for Demi’s body and a heavily touched photo of Demi’s head was attached. ‘Shop out the runway model’s hip bones, soften the neck ligaments and partially fill in the divit at the biceps. Now put Demi’s head on it. Poof! We have a W cover.

According to IMDB Demi is 5’5″ with 36-26-36 measurements. The W cover photo makes more sense when applied to a woman 5’9″ (or so) with approximately 32-24-34 measurements.

Also, the hatin’ on women who exercise regularly is not cool. The runway model is clearly starving herself to death or shooting WAY too much heroin, but Demi just looks like she’s woriking out 3-4 times a week and not eating a bunch of junk instead of food.
Anonymous

This is REALLY BAD PHOTOSHOP. Wow, hard to believe this made it past the editor.
Anonymous

it’s obvious they replaced Demi’s body with a slightly different photo of the runway model Limepies mentions. I did an overlay of the two photos and the similarities are too close for it to be a coincidence:
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/1922/demiwcover.jpg
- Anonymous
  
  Please compare the moles on her chest, neck and collarbones. It’s her alright.
  
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/xeni/4112094481/sizes/o/
  http://www.moono.com/celebz6524lol8911/big/120_27899_big.jpg
Anonymous

Echoing what everyone else said about this cover getting passed the art director etc…

Print guys/production guys don’t give a crap about what they put on the cover, as long as the color is right, etc… the rest of the checks are up to the damn art directors and creatives that over sees everything before print.

I’m a production designer and bottom line, most of the people “higher up” would find it annoying if you point out there mistakes…

So we leave it as is, print the damn thing, get paid and laugh our ass off when site like this finds the mistakes…

You guys make our days, thank you.
Brett Myers

The more I look at it, the more I begin to agree with anon #61. I don’t think she was wearing that outfit at all. The whole thing looks like cut & paste. If the original image ever leaks, it’ll look nothing like this.

The biggest reason she doesn’t look like Demi? They lengthened her face. Demi has a very square face. This face has been stretched. You can see it in the bridge of her nose. They greatly enlarged her eyes, opened them impossibly wide, stretched her face and fiddled with the mouth.
Anonymous

Being a former graphics supervisor in an ad company in the Philippines, and seeing all this fuzz about touch-up errors nowadays it makes me think that photoshop artist of well known magazines are so over-rated that their lousy work ends up being published. I feel bad for those model being the victim of this kind of lousy work.
Anonymous

Why can’t the fashion industry accept the notion that we want to see real people, as they are, and not stick-thin freaks? Women are beautiful! Big is beautiful! Let muscular, shapely women be seen as they are, and not tweaked into what a fashion editor’s idea of “perfect” is.
kamill1

I agree with the photog above. She could just be standing funny, weight on her leg. People have a natural dip in that area, and the fabric that is “floating” is clearly supported by her hand. Fuck people, jump all over everything eh? No one doubts she has had work done, no one doubts that pictures get photoshopped. But is this seriously the best example you can come up with? Come on. Noticing every little imperfection like this is the EXACT reason that photos get retouched. Tone down your sensitivity. Ralph Lauren, this is not. This just made me sad at all the savage comments.
Anonymous

bbonyx wrote: “Maybe if you’ve never seen a woman naked you can’t envision this, but it’s perfectly normal.”

No, if you *have* seen a woman naked, the hip-thigh mismatch is patent.

Sorry, bbonyx. Snarkyness = “total fail”.
DJcob

I have suspicions that the picture appears akward because the leg in question is pushed forward just a little bit and thus creates the turn from her waist to her pushed forward leg. The fabric looks like it could possibly sit in that way. I think it could attributed to a combination of circumstances that have created an seemingly unrealistic situation. Whatever it may be, she is STILL too skinny!
Sean Blueart

Wedge of meat indeed!
petej

How this made the approval process past the photo shopper, cover layout designer, art director, and printer is amazing. You would assume after the ralph lauren incident there would have been a memo floating around every design department everywhere that deals with fashion telling them not to do stupid stuff like this. Apparently W magazine didn’t get the memo.
- Anonymous
  
  The printer will print whatever has been signed off on. The don’t really care as long as they get paid. The so called art director, that’s another story.
Anonymous

Hmm – since some of you preface with your bona fides, guess I will too. I’ve been in and around this business my entire professional life (models, designers, photo shoots, editors, Photoshop, etc). Now I work at a modeling agency, and WAY too much of my day is spent on ridiculous and painstaking analysis and critique of bodies, angles, etc etc (let the flaming begin!)

And I say, a piece of her thigh is definitely missing.

I could be wrong, though. So, maybe we can settle the debate by seeing the unprocessed pic. ;)