Vogue Told Its Models Too Skeletal

A Swiss company, objecting to layouts with extremely thin models, urged the Vogue magazine on Friday to reconsider its policy, and claimed that such photos encourage eating disorders.

“It was irresponsible for a leading magazine, which should be setting an example, to select models of anorexic proportions,” Giles Rees, marketing manager for the watchmaking company Omega, said after seeing the June edition.

Rees said on Thursday that Omega was pulling its ads in protest. But the next day he said the decision was overridden by Omega’s chairman, Nicolas Hayek, who said “it is not in anybody’s interest to manipulate the editorial position of any given media.”

Publisher Stephen Quinn said the about-turn was “a complete victory” for Vogue, which owns the magazine.

“It’s good news in terms of editorial independence and the fact that advertising revenue will continue.”