The noose that Givenchy recently featured in their Spring/Summer 2022 show during Paris Fashion Week was heavily criticised as it brought back memories of Burberry’s noose hoodie back in 2019.
This is just the latest example of the way in which fashion fails to learn from its mistakes.
OK some of the brands might post an inadequate social media apology – but the behaviour is likely to be repeated again.
Back in 2015 Yves Saint Laurent’s advertising campaign was banned in the UK for featuring ‘unhealthily skinny’ models. But the company carried on getting skinny models to strut down its runways as part of the brand’s signature style.
In 2018 Burberry came under fire after news surfaced that the company burned nearly 40 million pounds worth of clothing. But it was only when they were held accountable that the brand announced that it would stop the practice. After all the media coverage you’d have hoped that other brands would learn from Burberry’s mistake, but recently Coach was outed by Anna Sacks’ The Trash Walker channel on TikTok for damaging their own goods, just to protect high prices.
After the Burberry scandal the company publicly admitted that: “It was insensitive and we made a mistake”. But following the recent Givenchy noosegate affair, neither Matthew Williams, Givenchy’s creative director, nor anyone else from the company has commented on their “artistic decision”.
The resemblance between Givenchy’s necklace and Burberry’s hoodie was pointed out by Diet Prada, the famous Instagram page that reports on fashion misconduct. Called “The industry’s watchdog” by many, Diet Prada has frequently called out designers and brands. More established publications tend to avoid doing this in case they lose potential new clients. Other dangers include being blacklisted or sued.
In 2018 Diet Prada also called out Dolce & Gabbana, for an advertising campaign that according to the site presented a “stereotypical and sexist depiction of a Chinese woman”. The accusations were given extra weight by the release of old posts from Gabbana’s personal Instagram account in which he made anti-Asian remarks.
The brand faced a huge backlash and Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the co-founders of D&G, created a video for Chinese media in which they apologised and beg for forgiveness. With #boycottdolce trending all over social media, the company broke with its brand ambassador in China.
Not that D&G were humble about it. Instead the Italian luxury fashion house filed a defamation case against Diet Prada in 2019, claiming three million euros for the brand and another one million euros for Stefano Gabbana.
In response Diet Prada has filed a defence based on freedom of speech, and a gofundme appeal for $65000 to help fund its defence has just reached its target. If the little publication wins against the fashion giant, then I=on this occasion the brand might actually learn from its mistake.