Underwear-clad women file suit against magazine

Twenty underwear-clad women appeared at the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office yesterday to file a libel suit against a local weekly magazine.

The Chinese-language magazine China Times Weekly recently carried a story saying that actress Wen Tzui-Pin (溫翠蘋) had appeared in an advertisement for "Wear Me" women's underwear that claimed women could reshape their body and lose weight by wearing the foundation garment, but the claim was not true.

The ad claimed "Wear Me" was made of bamboo-charcoal material, but the China Times Weekly said the garments were just made of regular cloth that had been dyed black.

The magazine said that in an interview, Wen said she had gained 2kg since she appeared in the ad.

The women representing Kuang Tong Group (廣通集團), a company selling "Wear Me," went to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office wearing the garment and shorts or short skirts. A few also wore hand-made paper masks to conceal their faces.

A court security guard, surnamed Chang, told reporters that he had never seen such a sight in all his years of being a guard.

One of the women, Vivi Wang (王婉霏), who has won several beauty contest, told reporters the women would sue the magazine and Wen for slander and ask for compensation.

Wang said the magazine had mixed up another company's product with "Wear Me" which had hurt the product's reputation.

She also said that Wen had failed to tell the magazine that she had not appeared in ads for "Wear Me."