“This year, we are aiming to raise the most money for this charity,” Nguyen said. “It’s not about the accusations of modifying models. They are incredible looking.”

Paoakalani A. Midro ’15, a model in the show, also defended the photo editing tactics. She said Tan had informed her that the photos would be edited but promised her that he had a strict rule of not altering subjects’ faces.

Midro said she saw only minor photo editing in the publicity pictures, including accentuating or cleaning up photos to maintain sharp lines. She said she asked the photographer to digitally modify her body but appreciated that her face did not get retouched.

“If you push it too far and you photoshop it a little too much, then it’s very noticeable and I think that is not okay,” Midro said. “But I know in the case of my pictures, it was done just to the right extent.”

But Kate Sim ’14, founder of the student group International Women’s Rights Collective, said that, although she was not familiar with the photos or involved in Harvard’s fashion scene, she found the prospect of such editing troublesome, especially given that the event tries to promote diverse forms of beauty.

“To make that kind of mission statement and alter the posters so they look a certain way is obviously contradictory to their mission statement,” she said.

—Staff writer Melanie A. Guzman can be reached at melanieguzman@college.harvard.edu.