Cambridge University newspaper runs topless photo of pupil

LONDON - The Cambridge University’s newspaper has published for the first time in 63 years the picture of one of its female students posing topless to promote a fashion brand of a fellow student.

In a photoshoot the King’s College undergraduate, Charlotte, appears wearing nothing but a strategically placed woolly scarf.

Another picture shows her sporting a fur hat and stretching a dark jumper over the tops of her thighs to narrowly preserve her modesty, while elsewhere she reveals her bare derriere as she stands in a meadow wearing only boots and a jacket, the Daily Mail reported.

Charlotte, 20, said the pictures - promoting model and fellow student Lily Cole’s knitwear label North Circular - had “artistic integrity”.

One of the pictures published in the latest edition of the Varsity shows her topless - a first in the newspaper’s 63-year history.

Charlotte said: “It was good fun and I thought the pictures had real artistic integrity. I had no qualms about doing it. I am happy with my body although I would change a lot of things if I had the power.”

Charlotte, from Exeter, who is in her second-year studying Japanese, said her clinical psychologist father and teacher mother were “fine” with her taking part.

Varsity fashion co-editor Jess Kwong, 24, another student at King’s, said: “The pieces are simple and lovely, which is why we kept the photo shoot as simple as possible.”

The shoot entitled Days of Heaven was organised by fashion editor Miss Kwong, who is at King’s College with Cole and fashion co-editor Louise Benson. They wanted to emulate a shoot supermodel Cole did with German fashion photographer Juergen Teller.

“I’ve seen earlier fashion shoots in Varsity this term and I think the fashion editors are great photographers, so when they approached me I decided to give it a go,” said Charlotte.

“They showed me the Lily Cole photos from her shoot with Juergen Teller and I liked the idea. It was absolutely freezing in the field but they had a big coat on hand.”

Charlotte, who has an older sister, added: “Jess and Louise are great stylists.”

The shoot was done in fields around Cambridge on a rainy afternoon.

Varsity is the oldest of Cambridge University’s student newspapers and has been published continuously since 1947. It appears every Friday and is one of only three fully independent student newspapers in Britain.