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But it is, so, we shouldn’t. The problem isn’t that it’s a stupid looking piece of fashion, especially since there are plenty of examples of high end fashion that many people consider stupid looking or ugly, but that it invokes a racist image…That’s the entire issue. Fashion, like other art, is certainly in the eye of the beholder, and what’s stupid to you or I, might be trendy and cool to someone else.
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Yep.
‘Make believe’ won’t fix a deeply rooted problem that some people are hellbent on just ignoring, because any real solutions would be difficult; it would require being really honest about the reality that non-White people all over the world have been forced to live in, as well as giving up some of that comfortable privilege.
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White Europeans doing blackface isn’t some moral high ground, either.
Just because a racist tradition is old, common, or beloved by nostalgic white people, doesn’t make it any less racial costuming and racial caricature.
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This is true. But Gucci is an international company with many if not most of its customers in the US. So one might look at individual traditions within the context of that specific location and culture and view it with a different lens. The same can be said when you are taking your goods and traditions outside of your culture, one should expect it to be looked at a lens from a different perspective.
Another example I can think of is the use of Nazi imagery in Asia. I am not talking about the Buddhist swastika, but straight up SS uniforms, Nazi and German flags, etc. A K-Pop band just got in trouble for wearing shirts with the German Nazi flag. Simply put, in Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, the Nazis are more of a curiosity and not treated with the level of taboo they are in the west. If these instance stayed in Asia, no one would really care. But since things are so much more international, we see and condemn these things.
I wasn’t trying to suggest the point should be ignored, it is the obvious important point. I just put it aside for the 2nd, albeit less important, but still puzzling to me, point.
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I guess a fashionista would say that you just don’t understand fashion! 
But I have to say the comment came off as a bit of a derail, just so you’re aware of that. I’m sure that’s not how you meant it, but none the less, just wanted you to be aware of that.
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Exactly. And they have a choice in which markets to offer their wares. And just because it’s not as offenseive to white Europeans doesn’t mean it isn’t offensive to black Europeans and black Africans. After all, blackface as a historical caricature of black slaves and émigrés from Africa is by no means native to nor unique within North America, let alone the US as someone above implied.
Well, it’s ugly. We all agree on that. It’s just that the aesthetic ugliness is arguably more subjective than the moral ugliness which is a social issue, though there are some reasonable arguments that the two are to a certain extent inextricably fused (though I myself would be out of my depth in attempting to evaluate those arguments).
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I know some people just can’t wait for any slight opportunity to shit on the US, because as a country, the US has done some truly shitty things to the rest of the planet.
But that doesn’t make the bigotry in non-American countries any ‘better’ than the bigotry we’re afflicted by here in the States.
Bigot is as bigot does, no matter where it happens.
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That is probably entirely true… though like I said I could SEE this as a thing, just not a high fashion thing. Someone else, @knoxblox, said that they literally had a rainbow of colors to use that would make this ok. And I could totally see this in like purple and pink or blue and red at Justice or a similar store. It has an element of being goofy or fun if done in a different way.
I appreciate the comment. Allow me to reply: It was still on topic - about the specific sweater. Did it offer an additional view besides the obvious one? (While acknowledging the obvious issue in the last paragraph) Yes, but I think adding a variety of views keeps the discussion more mixed and less likely to be just beating up a dead horse. I wasn’t the first to comment that it’s subjectively ugly. Of course YMMV.
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High fashion has been into taking not so high fashion and making them into high end apparel for ages now, though.
Of course! Ain’t that why we’re here!
I’d argue that the topic was specifically about the blackface nature of the sweater… otherwise, I’d doubt we’d be talking about it, yeah? Not that I think you’re comment was necessarily off-topic, but it just came off a bit as ignoring the larger issue of why we’re talking about it (especially given the number of VA politicians this week who seemed to have done blackface at least once in their lives). So, yeah, we can talk about the fact that it’s ugly, over and above the racism, sure… but what makes it doubly ugly is the fact that it is racist…
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Italy also doesn’t have some idyllic record on anti-black racism in particular. Not in its colonial past, or its present.
Having politicians who wear blackface in the present, isn’t morally better than politicians who wore it in the past.
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Was thinking this: it really does strain credulity that they could have been completely unaware how this specific color combination would be received.
And the thing is, if they’d made it beige or something I could see it marketed as like a novelty “hot lipstick” sweater without the racist connotations. Even an alternate “sexy 'stache” version maybe.
Even that would seem kind of weird for a top fashion designer though.
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Agreed.
It’s all antisocial, inhumane and straight-up garbage behavior; end of fucking story.
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Cheap publicity or utterly clueless? Or both?
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Well, what was its review in the NYT like?
Diversifying the paid staff doesn’t equate to recognizing or making amends, much less ending a racist institution. Marketing this sweater wasn’t racially insensitive. It was racist.
So what they’re really saying here is “hey, Blacks, we might hire any of you who don’t bitch us out for this.”
Will they diversity their Board and Executive Committee with real power beyond a token appointment? How diverse is it today? Will Francois-Henri Pinault, son and heir to the empire of the 30th richest person on earth, attend racial sensitivity training? Or does he get extra credit for marrying Salma Hayek?
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It’s “cheap” unless some people decide not to buy from them because of it. But I guess that’s not actually that likely? I don’t know, I guess I don’t have any idea who would have bought that sweater or any $890 sweater in the first place and know nothing about how they make decisions. Odds are Gucci is better at guessing how they’ll behave than I am.
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