Double standards

If you "Googled" the Web for Eric Engledew before this blog was started, one of the few references was the Time magazine report of BOAC's Swinging Singles tours debacle mentioned in Louise Keim’s article.

Reg Walden recalls from those days Eric bursting into his office with a copy of the Daily Mirror with a pithy, pseudo-purist front page headline decrying BOAC’s "immoral" tour offering. He then turned to the centre pages consisting of a two page spread of a pretty girl, naked, but lying face down and thus revealing a breast in profile. The Mirror’s propensity for double standards, veering from outraged morality on the cover to titillation on the centre spread, was long established - but what made Eric smile that day was that the model adorning the centre pages was his younger daughter, Kate.

This story reminded the writer of another occasion when Kate had been photographed for a bra advertisement. In the picture she was naked but for the product, standing side-on with her body turned slightly away from the camera. Apparently the client thought the image was too sexy and asked that the ad agency to reduce the amount of bare flesh. Rather than re-shoot the picture, the agency commissioned an airbrush artist to add a pair of plain white panties, evidently to the satisfaction of the client.

However, when the pictures were viewed side by side, the consensus of opinion amongst the red-blooded males of the population was that the airbrushed picture was far and away the more suggestive.

I can't recall Eric remarking on the incident but no doubt he would have thought it a case of less being more.