'I was sacked for being too fat,' says 'stick insect' model digitally retouched to make her head bigger than her waist



A model who was airbrushed to look super skinny in a Ralph Lauren advert claimed yesterday she was fired by the firm for being too fat.

Filippa Hamilton's figure was altered so that her hips and waist were unnaturally narrow in the shot.

But yesterday she claimed: 'They fired me because they said I was overweight.



Overweight? Filippa Hamilton in the digitally retouched photo, left, and as she normally is at a party in New York in 2007, right



'They said I couldn't fit in their clothes any more, because I was too large.'



The 23-year-old model, a size 8, said it was particularly distressing because she had had a long relationship with the company.



'I've been working with them since I was 15 years old, so I considered them my second family,' the 5ft 10in beauty said. 'I was very hurt about this.'

Miss Hamilton claims she was fired in April - before the digitally- altered images of her were released.

'I saw my face in this extremely skinny girl - which is not me,' she recalled.

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

'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.'

In a statement last night Polo Ralph Lauren denied her claims, saying their relationship ended 'as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract'.

'The image in question was mistakenly released and used in a department store in Japan and was not the approved image which ran in the U.S. We take full responsibility,' the statement said.

'This error has absolutely no connection to our relationship with Filippa Hamilton.'

Hamilton's lawyer, Geoffrey Menin, said the image is 'gross distortion of how she really looks and which we fear will be extremely damaging to her.'

Hamilton said she was concerned about its impact on the public.

'I think they owe American women an apology, a big apology,' she said.

'I'm very proud of what I look like, and I think a role model should look healthy.'

Asked if she planned to sue she said: 'I don't think so, but I'm not sure. I don't know - we'll see.'









