The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 2025
Elle UK cropped BLACKPINK's Rosé out of a fashion-week group photo
Elle UK posted a Saint Laurent show photo with Rosé, the only Asian/K-pop star, cropped out — fans read racism, and the magazine apologised.
Elle UK · 2025-10-02
What happened
In early October 2025 Elle UK posted a group photo from the Saint Laurent Women's Spring/Summer 2026 show at Paris Fashion Week. The image showed Charli XCX, Hailey Bieber and Zoë Kravitz together — with BLACKPINK's Rosé, Saint Laurent's own global ambassador, cropped out of the frame.
Fans and K-pop media read the edit as deliberate disrespect, and around the world the removal was called out as racial discrimination — the one non-Western face in the shot was the one deemed expendable. The story spread across Singapore's Straits Times, the Daily Mail and Times Now within days.
Elle UK issued an apology on Instagram, saying the crop was 'not intended to offend anyone', but the episode handed the magazine a credibility problem its own readers had to decide whether to believe.
Why it happened
- A fashion magazine editing out the only Asian star in a group shot handed its audience a racial-slight story that no apology could fully walk back.
- Cropping Saint Laurent's own ambassador from a photo of its own show undercut the relationship the brand was paying for.
- The instinct to fit Western faces into a frame at the expense of the one non-Western star read as bias, whatever the crop was meant to do.
The lesson
A crop that removes the only non-Western face in a group shot is read as a statement before it is read as aesthetics — a small edit can hand a global audience a racism story.
Aftermath
Elle UK issued an Instagram apology in early October 2025 saying the crop was not intended to offend. The episode was covered by the Straits Times, the Daily Mail and Times Now, and continued to be cited as an example of Western media's treatment of K-pop stars.
Sources
- Elle UK apologises for cropping Blackpink's Rose from group photo at Paris Fashion Week — The Straits Times
- Elle UK issues apology statement after cropping Blackpink star Rosé out of a Saint Laurent group photo — Daily Mail
- Blackpink Rose's racism controversy: Elle UK apologises for cropping her photo — Times Now
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