With the recent wave of protests around anti-Black racism and police brutality in the United States and Canada, there’s been a reckoning within some very prominent companies. Execs at female-focused companies like The Wing have resigned amid allegations that they fostering discriminatory and unequal work environments, while in the media world, brands like Vogue, Refinery 29, and Bon Apétit have all been taken to task for racist practices. This reckoning has also reached the fashion world. Emboldened and supported by people speaking out against systemic racism, Black and POC employees from several well-known fashion brands have spoken out about their treatment, detailing everything from racial microaggressions to overtly racist comments and racial profiling in the retail environment.
Additionally, many prestige brands that took part in the June 2 #BlackOutTuesday, posting black squares to their Instagram grids in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, were called out for being performative and virtue signalling.
These conversations are important, and it’s vital that these employees and customers voice their experiences and hold these brands—many of which profit from Black culture—accountable.
Here, a list of the fashion brands that have been called out for racist behaviour. Plus, Black-owned brands to shop instead.
Anthropologie
A brand that has become known for bohemian style with an Upper East Side price, Anthropologie has been accused of racism after several former employees revealed that stores in California, Chicago, Seattle, NYC and Canada use the code name “Nick” to refer to Black shoppers. The backlash to the brand came after a June 1 post on the fashion company’s Instagram account. The post—which featured a stylized Maya Angelou poem—called for equality and empathy, but failed to mention Black Lives Matter or the current protests.
While some fans of the brand initially replied with calls for the phrase to be printed on a shirt or poster and sold *in* Anthropologie stores (and applauded the company for a #BlackOutTuesday post on June 2), it wasn’t long before many online started to call the brand out for their hypocrisy, with former employees reporting having been “trained” to watch Black shoppers and follow them around the store, a claim that was supported by several Black shoppers. “How are you going to stop racially profiling your ‘[Nick’s]’?,” Instagram user @flleurdeblooms commented. “I worked at Anthropologie and the racial profiling was sickening. So many times the management told us to watch people of color over the headsets and I refused to follow around mostly black people who were just minding their own damn business and respectfully shopping. Please change.” In response, user @nickolas_anthony commented: “I thought Chicago was the only ones who used ‘Nick’ as a form of saying ‘watch that black woman who just walked in.’”
Other followers also noted that the brand doesn’t predominantly feature Black or diverse models in their campaigns.
Read this next: 13 Black-Owned Fashion Brands to Shop Now
In response to the criticisms, Anthropologie released a statement on June 10 outlining their “long-standing policies” around business practices. In the post, they pushed back on claims that they use code words to identify and racially profile Black customers, stating: “we have never and will never have a code word based on a customer’s race or ethnicity. Our company has a zero-tolerance policy regarding discrimination or racial profiling in any form.”
Where to shop instead: Hope for Flowers by Tracy Reese
Aritzia
Canadian brand Aritzia is beloved by many and has been receiving positive press recently for their initiatives to gift frontline workers clothes and a recent $100,000 donation to Black Lives Matter and the NAACP, but that doesn’t mean that what’s happening behind the scenes is as great. Former employee Karissa Lewis, who worked at the company’s Yorkdale, Ont. location, responded to the fashion brand’s May 31 social media post about their BLM donation by sharing her personal experience working as a manager for Aritzia. In an Instagram story, Lewis shared that during her five-month tenure as the only Black manager on her team, she was treated differently by other managers, blatantly disrespected by customers and given cashier shifts despite being an associate manager. Lewis also recounted a particular incident where a Black employee was fired for speaking up about racism in the store, a decision Lewis—as the store’s manager—was not made aware of until after the employee was fired.
:: Hi @ARITZIA, I’d like to use my small platform to make a public proclamation of how poppy show y’all are. pic.twitter.com/oCYSDhThNv
— Kariss (@EverytingKariss) June 1, 2020
In a follow-up June 10 interview with Huffington Post, Lewis described the overall culture of the company and its stores as “very clique-y, very exclusionary,” and noted that Aritzia taught their employees “code words” to describe certain types of customers, “so you would know that you should spend your time with certain people and not others,” Lewis said. Per HuffPo, “A” would stand for Asian “as they were seen as being rich” and “TW” would stand for “time waster,” a.k.a. someone who would use up an associate’s time and not buy anything. According to Lewis, this could include Black customers.
Other users on Twitter and Instagram also responded to Aritzia’s donation announcement, recounting incidents in which they, as staff, were told to follow young Black customers around the store until they left.
I worked at @ARITZIA in Ottawa, Canada for one month many years ago. The manager at that time would instruct employees to approach black youth every 2 minutes asking if they “need help” until they left the store because they felt unwelcome and harassed. Never with white youth.
— Narineh Panosian (@npanosian) June 8, 2020
And another former Aritzia employee tweeted about being told—as the only Black employee—to straighten their hair to maintain the store image.
TB when I was the only Black person working and was told to straighten my hair to maintains the store image
— jam
(@jamilayff) June 1, 2020
After several days of HuffPo following up with Aritzia about these claims, company CEO Brian Hill announced an “internal investment of $1 million” into the brand’s diversity and inclusion program. “We have spoken to a number of the Black members of our team and many former employees who wanted to share their experiences at Aritzia. We are grateful for those who have reached out so far, their voice matters,” he said, said. “That’s why, investing in ourselves, holding ourselves accountable, condemning intolerance and injustice, and making sure that Aritzia is a place where all people can come and have successful careers, develop and grow is our top priority.”
Where to shop instead: Kai Collective
Ban.do
It turns out that even your favourite kitschy brands aren’t exempt from racism. Ban.do, the pastel-hued mental health-focused brand founded by Busy Philipp’s BFF Jen Gotch has also been in hot water as of late. On June 4, a former employee shared insight from her time working for the online brand. In a lengthy Instagram essay, Gabriella Sanchez, who says she worked at Ban.do from 2014 to 2016, accused Gotch of cultivating “an overall toxic culture,” detailing instances of overt racism from Gotch and style director Kelly Edmonson. One such instance occurred during Sanchez’s first week on the job, when the Ban.do group went for lunch. “We were sitting on the outside patio of the restaurant when a Black couple walked up and sat at the opposite end of the patio,” Sanchez wrote. “Jen was in the middle of telling a story when she saw the couple walk by she started talking in an ‘accent’—one very much like from those old racist movies with people in blackface. One of the girls asked her why she was talking like that and Jen made a joke of it and laughed and said it was her ‘plantation accent.’”
Sanchez said that when she didn’t engage and shrank back from the group after lunch, Gotch singled her out in front of everyone, saying: “I don’t think Gabby likes us.” Sanchez wrote that the rest of her time at Ban.do was “plagued with racism and emotional manipulation.”
In response to Sanchez’s post and several others by former employees, Gotch initially posted an apology (on Instagram, of course), before announcing on June 8 that she was stepping down as the brand’s Chief Creative Officer and taking a leave of absence. Gotch’s Instagram account has since been deleted, but on June 13, Ban.do released a similar statement on Insta announcing her removal.
Where to shop instead: Yowie
Celine
After sharing their supposed support for the movement against anti-Black racism and oppression, posting a statement to their Instagram page stating that the brand “stands against all forms of discrimination, oppression and racism,” luxury fashion brand Celine was called out by celeb stylist Jason Bolden for their performative solidarity, stating that the brand doesn’t dress Black celebs unless they’re working with a white stylist. So essentially, they refuse to work with Black stylists. “@celine wait really, u guys dnt dress any black celebs unless they have a white stylist…FACTS,” Bolden commented under the post, alongside a perplexed emoji.
But we shouldn’t be too perplexed—or surprised by this statement. As Instagram account @diet_prada pointed out in their post on Bolden’s comment, Hedi Slimane, the brand’s current creative director, reportedly has an “aversion to Black models.” And the stats @diet_prada had to back this claim up are ABYSMAL. During his time with Celine thus far, Black models have been severely under-represented on the runway.
Celine has yet to respond or comment on the allegations.
Where to shop instead: Christopher John Rogers
Gucci
Taking a cue from model Karlie Kloss, Gucci’s Cleo Wade re-post about racism backfired after many on social media called out the company’s history of questionable—and frankly racist—decisions.
In February 2019, the brand came under fire for selling a black turtleneck sweater that resembled blackface. The sweater, which was part of Gucci’s Winter 2018 line, featured a roll-up collar that covered the lower half of the wearer’s face and featured a wide red lip outline around the mouth. And seriously Gucci: why?
Read this next: The World’s Major Beauty Queens Are All Black and It’s About Time
At the time, the fashion house released a statement apologizing, saying: “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.” They have yet to respond to the recent backlash.
Where to shop instead: Victor Glemaud
Reformation
It’s every cool girl’s go-to for sustainable fashion, but according to some, Reformation is also the “go-to” place for racist corporate culture.
On June 5, former employee Elle Santiago posted a statement to Instagram describing her experience working for the company. “I am addressing this issue as a stance again companies who play a role in the systems that fail our black and brown brothers and sisters daily,” Santiago captioned her post, noting, “This is only one example of a very large and in charge problem.”
Santiago wrote that the decision to publicly call out of her former employer came on the heels of a rise in overt police brutality against Black people and Reformation having reached out to her to talk with them about her experience with the company. In her letter, Santiago lists a series of racist incidents she witnessed or was the victim of over the year she worked as an assistant manager (under no manager) at Reformation’s Los Angeles flagship store. These incidents included the consistent promotion of white employees over POC and Black employees who were better qualified. Santiago also talked about being introduced to the company’s founder, Yael Aflalo, noting that the founder appeared to “purposely not answer if I called her name.” Santiago also recalled an incident in which Aflalo failed to speak up when a white employee posted pictures of herself on Instagram eating fried chicken to celebrate Black History Month.
Read this next: Get to Know These 20 Black-Owned Beauty Companies
After first posting an apology on Reformation’s Instagram page, Aflalo announced on June 12 that she’ll be stepping down as the brand’s CEO, effective immediately.
Where to shop instead: A.Au
Zimmerman
Another fashion label being called out for discrimination against its employees is the boho brand Zimmerman. Much like Reformation, after Zimmerman posted on social media in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, several former interns and employees came forward to call out the company for performative allyship. And a peek behind the curtain shows that racism within the company is deeply entrenched. Per @diet_prada, the “Grooming & Presentation Standards” portion of the retail employee manual (which ex-employees say was circulated up until September 2019) shows that Black women are completely absent, with stars like Olivia Palermo and several white Victoria’s Secret Angels featured as the “standard.”
And in the hair section of the manual, language is worded in such a way that seems aimed to exclude Black employees and their natural hair or cultural hairstyles. For example, the manual specifies that employee’s hair must be “soft, textured loose waves, or blow-dried straight,” and prohibits “high buns, top knots, plaits, [and] braids.”
In response to being called out, Zimmerman issued an apology on June 12, noting that the brand’s intent was to always foster a positive environment, writing: “We apologise to all those that have been hurt by our failure to adequately protect against discrimination and are truly sorry that we have not lived up to these expectations.”
The company said that they have formed a Diversity and Inclusion Group, are implementing training programs on unconscious bias, are updating their internal training materials and guidelines to ensure racial inclusivity and are auditing the diversity of Zimmerman globally. In addition, the company donated $150,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Aboriginal Legal Service.
Where to shop instead: Fe Noel
The post These Fashion Brands Have All Been Accused of Racism appeared first on Flare.
