By Gretchen Keiser

A Macy’s fashion ad, showing a laughing model wearing a fake leopard skin coat and two rosaries as accessories over her outfit was in “very bad taste” and won’t happen again, according to the spokeswoman for the department store.

The advertisement was part of a full-color fall sale circular inserted in Sunday newspapers in the Southeast, including cities in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas and Florida.

When it appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Oct. 1 several Catholic readers were outraged and contacted the archdiocese of Atlanta. The insert was designed and approved in Atlanta, according to Kathleen Waugh, vice president for public relations for Macy’s South/Bullocks.

Macy’s has “final approval” over the contents of the circular and agrees with complaints by readers that the photograph was inappropriate, Ms. Waugh said in a telephone interview.

“It was in very bad taste,” she said. “It is Macy’s responsibility to be sensitive to that issue. It won’t happen again and we agree it should not have happened.”

She described the rosaries as “accessories” put on the model by a freelance stylist. The stylist, the creative director and advertising personnel were informed of Macy’s position, she said.

She was unable to specify how many thousands of copies of the circular were distributed through the combined circulations of newspapers in the cities with Macy’s stores. In addition to Atlanta, the cities listed on the insert included Athens, Augusta and Macon, Ga., Palm Beach and Boynton Beach, Florida, Houston and Dallas, Texas, Birmingham, Ala., New Orleans and Columbia, S.C.

The department store chain received complaints in Atlanta and other cities, Ms. Waugh said. Two Atlanta women told The Georgia Bulletin that they were tearing up Macy’s charge cards after seeing the advertisement. Ms. Waugh said any callers who left an address would receive a letter from Macy’s explaining that it would not happen again.

The timing of the ad during the month of October and the week of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary particularly stung some Catholics.

The photograph shows a smiling model wearing a black ensemble, dark glasses and the fake leopard coat with two rosaries of varying lengths worn as strands of dangling jewelry.

It was later learned that the photograph also appeared in Macy’s ad in the program given to those attending performances at Symphony Hall in Atlanta during the first week in October.