From The New York Daily News…
Model Caroline Forsling sues Estee Lauder for $2 million over ‘manipulated’ photo in ad
By Melissa Grace, Daily News Staff Writer
A former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model has slapped Estee Lauder with a $2 million lawsuit claiming the cosmetics behemoth used a “manipulated” image of her in an anti-aging ad campaign.
Caroline Forsling, a Swedish model who lives in New York, is demanding that the company be ordered to stop using a test shot of her face that she agreed to for a hair care product shoot earlier this year — and nothing else.
Months later, Forsling saw a photo from the shoot with her hair pulled back and before her makeup was applied in an ad for the skin care product Plantscription.
The picture was split in two, with the left side of the blue-eyed beauty’s face labeled “before” and the right labeled “after” in a supposed “dramatization” of the effects of a clinical test of cream.
Adding insult to injury, the advertising materials — which were plastered on the Estee Lauder-owned Origins line website and on in-store displays — stated that the test subjects of the study were women aged 45-60, the lawsuit charges.
“Forsling has never used Plantscription. She did not participate in Defendants’ study - indeed, she would not have been eligible to participate because she is significantly younger than 45,” the suit claims — without indicating her age.
“Upon information and belief, the image was modified through the use of photo editing software though it remained recognizable as an image of Forsling,” her lawyer, Edward Rosenthal, wrote in the legal papers filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The ex-catwalk crawler’s birthday is unknown but her online bio says she appeared in the 1998 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and graced the cover of German “Marie Clair” in January 1999.
Her lawyer did not return calls for comment.
Forsling said that despite agreeing to stop using the photo, Estee Lauder and Origins sent it to modeling agencies as “casting call materials” as they sought models with “fine wrinkles.”
The suit claims Forsling’s civil rights were violated and the company enriched itself at her expense and damaged her career.
Officials at Estee Lauder and Origins had no comment on the pending litigation.
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