Among the fashion-related news this December there was the story of the controversial Zara ad campaign.
Shot by Tim Walker, the images, posted on Zara's official social media channels, promoted six new jackets and depicted model Kristen McMenamy among rubble and plaster, posing next to mannequins and statues (the idea was showing craftsmanship in an artistic context) or standing next to the sort of wooden boxes traditionally used to ship artworks. In one image the model was portrayed carrying a mannequin wrapped in a white sheet.
The images led to a notable backlash on social media platforms, especially on Instagram, TikTok, and X, where people started drawing parallels to news reports from the Israel-Gaza conflict depicting bodies of Palestinians covered in white sheets.
Social media users claimed the advertisements mocked the destruction of the war and also featured a cardboard cutout that resembled an inverted map of Palestine. As a consequence, a call to boycott Zara started with the hashtag #boycottzara gainining considerable traction, amassing around 20 million views on TikTok.
Inditex, Zara's parent company, confirmed that the campaign was conceptualized in July, and the photo shoot took place in September, so months prior to the recent conflict that started in the first week of October. But, as the backlash grew, Zara expressed regret for any offense caused and retired the campaign.
"Unfortunately, some customers felt offended by these images, which have now been removed, and saw in them something far from what was intended when they were created," the company stated on social media. “Zara regrets that misunderstanding and we reaffirm our deep respect towards everyone."
Zara has actually got a history of encountering calls for boycotts related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: in 2021 Zara's chief designer, Vanessa Perilman, made offensive remarks about Palestinians on social media. The company faced condemnation, and Perilman received criticism for a direct message to Palestinian model Qaher Harhash on Instagram ("Maybe if your people were educated then they wouldn’t blow up the hospitals and schools that Israel helped to pay for in Gaza," Perilman said to Harhash. "Israelis don't teach children to hate nor throw stones at soldiers as your people do") in response to a pro-Palestinian post made by Harhash a month after an 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, which led to over 200 deaths.
In 2022 Zara came under fire after Joey Schwebel, chair of Zara's Israel franchisee Trimera, hosted a campaign event for right-wing ultranationalist politician Itamar Ben-Gvir. This led to Arab Israelis burning Zara's clothes and calling for a boycott.
In this case, before releasing the campaign Zara may have wondered if the images may have triggered the wrong connections in people (perhaps omitting the main image of the model carrying the statue wrapped in a white sheet could have reshifted the attention to the sculpture studio moods of the campaign).
That said interpreting a campaign is subjective, so each of us may project on an image a particular feeling or idea we may have, but at times, as commentators on social media, we lack the knowledge to make connections with other campaigns or images from decades ago.
Versace Spring/Summer 1985 campaign photographed by David Bailey featured for example female models in Versace swimsuits or evening wear and male models wrapped up in coarse linen shrouds held together by thick ropes. As you may guess, this wasn't a great idea.
The male models had a sort of mummy-meets-corpse look and at the time the campaign raised a few eyebrows as it looked rather disturbing and the images left you cold: were these men dead? Were they annoying yuppies (check out the man in the suit in the last image in this post) killed for, well, being annoying yuppies; was this an erotic game gone wrong or a dominatrix going down the necrophiliac path? We will never know. What we do know, though, is that in this case the wrapped up bodies weren't supposed to be sculptures, but, well, real men.
In conclusion, both companies and social media users should maybe apply the basic principle "think before acting (or reacting)" - as a company you may plan and shoot a winter campaign during the summer, but unexpected occurrences may alter the appropriateness of a campaign.
As for users, before joining the chorus of accusers, strive for greater knowledge. Keep in mind that the history of fashion has witnessed more controversial instances than this Zara campaign (we may actually highlight that this campaign appeared a bit bland as boxes with statues or models as statues coming out of wooden boxes isn't a groundbreaking idea in fashion and Tim Walker has often turned to this solution in previous photoshoots - think about his 2018 photoshoot entitled "Handle with Care").
Nevertheless, this incident underscores the effectiveness of calling for boycotts: since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza conflict in October, the boycott movement against a number of multinational companies for their support of and ties to Israel has indeed expanded significantly.
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