https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/02/07/haute-couture-blackface-gucci-apologizes-pulls-racist-sweater/?utm_term=.8d5545733672

Black History Month is not off to the best start.

February has long been dedicated to celebrating black people and their landmark achievements, but just a week into this year’s observance people are already calling for a “redo” — and blackface is largely to blame.

On Friday, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) initially admitted to being in a photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook that showed one person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe. Later, Northam insisted he was not in the picture, but did say he had once used black shoe polish on his face to look like Michael Jackson. On Wednesday, Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) said he dressed in blackface during college — the same day the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill condemned a 1979 yearbook with a picture of two people in Klan attire appearing to hang another person in blackface.

But the month’s latest blackface controversy doesn’t involve a Virginia leader or college students. This time, the offender is a sweater made by the Italian luxury brand Gucci.

Virginia: Every elected white male in the state has been in blackface at some point.

Gucci: Hold my bag, my belt, and my jeans. pic.twitter.com/mLj3x0LEXQ

— Tyler (@TyFromTheSky) February 7, 2019
A lanky white model with glossy brown hair is pictured against a light gray background. A black turtleneck obscures most of the bottom half of her face, save for her mouth, which peeks out through a hole cut out of the fabric. Outlining the mouth hole is a ring of red in the shape of what appear to be lips.

Images of the sweater, a wool balaclava jumper that retails for $890, were shared to social media on Wednesday and sparked intense backlash, many calling the garment’s design “racist,” or “Haute Couture Blackface,” as one person described it. Late Wednesday night, Gucci issued an apology and confirmed that the turtleneck had been “immediately removed from our online store and all physical stores.”



“Gucci deeply apologizes for the offense caused by the wool balaclava jumper,” the company said in a statement shared to Twitter. “We consider diversity to be a fundamental value to be fully upheld, respected, and at the forefront of every decision we make.”

The statement continued: “We are fully committed to increasing the diversity throughout our organization and turning this incident into a powerful learning moment for the Gucci team and beyond.”

Gucci deeply apologizes for the offense caused by the wool balaclava jumper.
We consider diversity to be a fundamental value to be fully upheld, respected, and at the forefront of every decision we make.
Full statement below. pic.twitter.com/P2iXL9uOhs

— gucci (@gucci) February 7, 2019
The photos appeared to have first been shared Wednesday afternoon by a Twitter user who wrote: “Balaclava knit top by Gucci. Happy Black History Month y’all.” The same person also discovered that Gucci was selling a black hat that looked like the top half of a ski mask, writing, “They have a mask to match so you can have a chic classic black face moment without the mess of paint.” As of early Thursday morning, the pair of tweets had nearly 2,000 comments and had been retweeted roughly 5,300 times combined.

“someone obviously didnt let gucci know its Black HISTORY Month and NOT BLACKFACE Month,” one person tweeted.

Another person wrote, “ah yes, black face but make it fashion huh?”

So @gucci puts out a sweater that looks like blackface......
On Black History Month....
And then issues an apology because they didn't know that blackface images are racist.

🤦🏿‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/G3HjPTIuuQ

— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) February 7, 2019
The sweater was part of Gucci’s fall winter 2018 collection, according to a description from ModeSens, an online fashion shopping search engine. The multicolored knitted balaclavas, a form of closefitting cloth headgear, featured in the line were inspired by vintage ski masks, the description said, noting that the turtleneck “combines the accessory with the ready-to-wear collection.”

But for many critics, the top’s hybrid design and the way it was modeled created an image that too closely resembled the title character of a 19th-century children’s book called “The Story of Little Black Sambo,” which has historically been used as a racist trope.

the Gucci sweater with the red out line around the mouth is sambo black face to the T pic.twitter.com/UPwo2TLHtz

— say (@sayxwlh) February 7, 2019
“I get the Idea they were going for . . . BUT WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE BLACK?” a Twitter user asked. Another wanted to know why the red lips had been added.

One person argued that the design was “intentional.”

“They could have literally chosen any other color scheme, but they went with this,” the person tweeted.

It didn’t take long for “boycott Gucci” calls to begin spreading across social media.

“This is DISGUSTING,” a person wrote on Twitter. “I don’t wanna see any of you with Gucci belts and slides after this.”

Not good Enuff #boycottgucci https://t.co/4g7JwH3UUY

— Afrocreative (@VoiceOfAfricaFM) February 7, 2019
@gucci u got some explaining to do 😳on black history month..y’all can’t be serious

They do this to prove how blacks will still buy their brand no matter how racist they are #BoycottGucci #fashion pic.twitter.com/2Bv4A1h47x

— DJ NEw York (@BlackCulture77) February 7, 2019
Some, however, did not appear to agree with the outrage.

“This is ridiculous, it is a . . . sweater, stop thinking so far into things,” a person tweeted. “Since when do sweaters have anything to do with race?”

It's today's subject.

A week ago half the people "outraged" about it would probably have thought it was cute and might like to wear it in cold weather or skiing.

But this week it means blackface. Except for the whole part where it's just half the face...

— Kevin D Jones (@Kevin_D_Jones) February 7, 2019
Gucci isn’t the only fashion brand to be accused of marketing a product that invokes blackface. In 2016, Moncler pulled a jacket and shirt bearing designs of what was intended to be a penguin-inspired character with white rimmed eyes and a grinning red mouth, Essence reported. More recently, in December, Prada was widely panned for a window display in its New York SoHo boutique that featured giant versions of a keychain charm that looked like a monkey with a prominent red mouth, The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan reported. Prada also apologized, took down the display, announced it would no longer sell the $550 keychain and vowed to create an advisory council “to guide our efforts on diversity, inclusion and culture.”


Of course @gucci made a blackface product, they couldn't have @Prada cornering that market. pic.twitter.com/oBZtgFc50G

— Year of the Goat (@SarcasmTutor) February 7, 2019
Social media users pointed out that these blunders signal a need for brands such as Gucci and Prada to hire more people of color. According to an August 2018 article in the Cut called “What It’s Really Like to Be Black and Work in Fashion,” statistics showed influential positions in the industry are seldom held by black people. Out of the 495 members in the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a prominent trade organization, only 15 are black, the Cut reported at the time. During last year’s fall New York Fashion Week shows, less than 10 percent of the designers were black, according to the Cut. A black photographer’s work didn’t grace the cover of Vogue until August 2018.

“I am a @gucci fan, and I was going to buy a jacquard cardigan because it’s a forever piece, but until they and other luxury brands hire some people of color to consider the imagery of items like the ‘blackface’ balaclava sweater (Randy Jackson voice) its a no for me dawg!” a person tweeted.

If you hire more Black people and cultivate an environment where people on all levels of the company feel comfortable to speak up incidents like this will be avoided.

— The GLOWBOSS (@VanessaVeasley) February 7, 2019
______________________________________________________________________________

"To Each His Reach"

but.....

Fuck aliens.

Im not buying the whole "if you had more black employees this wouldn't have happened" thing for shit like this. You don't need to be black to know this is bad. No excuse.

And the timing of it. Makes you wonder if its just a publicity stunt. Is it possible to be this ignorant in 2019?

Are you supposed to do that with the turtleneck? Do people really do that with turtlenecks? Why the red lip design?

https://atlantablackstar.com/2018/12/15/prada-pulls-black-sambo-like-characters-from-new-campaign-customers-call-for-boycott/

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article223110445.html

because the Pradamalia collection is about these weird fucking characters and that one in particular comes in different colors:

https://a57.foxnews.com/a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2018/12/640/320/1862/1048/prada-3.jpg?ve=1&tl=1?ve=1&tl=1

https://cdnd.lystit.com/200/250/tr/photos/prada/ff0bbf17/prada--Malia-Necklace-With-Silver-Charm.jpeg

https://fashionwomans.club/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/812672f2609c4da4025b48e368fab057.jpeg



Is it a misstep? Hell fucking yes. Should I be upset? Mmm, not sure. Or rather, in the grand scheme of things, that deserves a few drops of giving a fuck not the whole cup.

so they change the colors of the lips, etc...

but the figures are black and brown bodies

?

that resemble monkeys.

which I suppose is a different way of approaching it.

there is the monkey, the dog, the octopus looking thing the banana looking thing and a few others. Walnut wood is used as accent material for the other creatures like the body of the horned animal and the legs for another one.

dog is blue resin but the money is walnut wood.

I mean, the could have made the monkey out of another material like resin and the argument that a good amount of monkeys outside of squirrel, snub nosed, patas, red colobus, roloway monkeys and gibbons have brown/red/black fur flies out the window once you realize the dog is blue and dog are not naturally blue...which by the way the dog has two tails and dogs do not have two tails

Still....I only have two drops of fuck to give with this one. Should they remove all stock and destroy the items? Sure, might as well.

You know what does bother me? This fucking comercial and the way it looks like the man is hanging: https://www.ispot.tv/ad/dlf7/fanduel-sportsbook-overdue

That COULD be a cool line of clothes with different color schemes, although that seems more like some type of hot topic shit, not a $800+ garment

https://i.imgur.com/0Q4ifeD.jpg?fb

total wtf

there's no way Gucci thought this item would actually sell.

I move that we crochet a bunch of 'whiteface' masks similar to these. White masks with tiny lips.
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I don't fuck with none of these brands cause none of them support the black community imo.

Stop supporting brands that don't respect. Guarantee Gucci does more than apology for similar imagery targeted towards members of the Jewish diaspora.