Curvy Canadian Leads Boycott against Elle Magazine

Toronto, ON, April 1, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Today, plus size fashion expert and top blogger Karen Ward, from Curvy Canadian, announced that she is leading a boycott against Elle Magazine. Ward is leading this boycott as a protest to the excessive photoshopping and cropping of plus size celebrity cover models.

Ward published a call-to-action for readers of Curvy Canadian to #BoycottElle, demonstrating how Elle has consistently and systematically edited images of plus size celebrities to show as little of their bodies as possible in cover images. Ward has been blogging as Curvy Canadian since 2010, and has published over a hundred articles about plus size fashion and body positivity. She has been featured in a number of different mediums including The New Yorker, CBC News' The National, The Globe and Mail, MTV, the front cover of The Grid TO, CNN, HLN, Flare Magazine, Fashion Magazine, Canadian Living, The Toronto Sun, The Toronto Standard, and The Huffington Post.

"Elle should want to accurately represent the diversity of women in their publication, but this is obviously not the case. Elle is more concerned with maintaining its 'high fashion' image, than with ethics and the self-esteem of the hundreds of thousands of women who read their magazine," Ward said. "This is what my campaign is working towards changing."

Karen Ward, Blogger, Curvy Canadian

Elle Magazine is a multinational publication, with 43 editions in over 60 countries. Elle Magazine seldom features plus size celebrities on the covers of their publication, but every time they do, they tight crop and photoshop the image excessively, so only a highly edited version of the celebrity's face is shown. This is outside their normal practice of showing two-thirds to three-quarters of a celebrity's body in the cover image. Ward believes this practice is highly discriminatory, and is damaging to the self-esteem of the magazines' readers. Ward has launched a social media campaign using the hashtag #BoycottElle to bring greater awareness to this issue, and to place pressure on Elle Magazine to correct these issues.

"Elle should want to accurately represent the diversity of women in their publication, but this is obviously not the case. Elle is more concerned with maintaining its ‘high fashion’ image, than with ethics and the self-esteem of the hundreds of thousands of women who read their magazine," Ward said. "This is what my campaign is working towards changing."

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR TO SET UP AN INTERVIEW, PLEASE CONTACT:

Curvy Canadian / Karen Ward / 647-239-0750 / karen@curvy-canadian.com