Online retailer Revolve apologized on Thursday following Dunham's abandonment the previous day of a sweatshirt line she'd helped produce in partnership with the company as well as designer Lara Pia Arrobio and four other women.
The genesis of the ill-fated clothing line was an attempt to appropriate insults hurled at women. The sweatshirt collection featured several mean-spirited things said to the participating women, including Dunham, such as "Horrible Result of Modern Feminism," "too boney to be boned" and the one that ruffled feathers the internet-over: "being fat is not beautiful, it's an excuse," which was directed at curvy model Paloma Elsesser, Cosmopolitan reported. At the bottom of the shirt, in much smaller lettering, it said "as said to [person in question]."
Dunham sided with irate fans on Wednesday as photos emerged of the shirt in question being modeled by a thin woman, reinforcing the impression that the shirt's quote wasn't a subversion of the insult but a repetition of it.
LOLLLLL @REVOLVE y’all are a mess. pic.twitter.com/CrzOkd5oE4
— Tess Holliday 🥀 (@Tess_Holliday) September 12, 2018
In a lengthy Instagram post viewed by Sputnik and accompanying a photo of a Peter Paul Rubens painting — a Flemish Baroque artist known for painting curvy women — Dunham disowned the line and said she was disappointed in Revolve's decision to model the clothes in such a way.
"This is a cause very close to my heart, and the proceeds were meant to benefit charities that help young women by empowering them to express themselves through writing and art," Dunham wrote Wednesday. "Without consulting me or any of the women involved, @revolve presented the sweatshirts on thin white women, never thinking about the fact that difference and individuality is what gets you punished on the Internet, or that lack of diversity in representation is a huge part of the problem (in fact, the problem itself). As a result, I cannot support this collaboration or lend my name to it in any way. This isn't meant to shame Pia or the great work she's done with LPA. I am deeply disappointed in @revolve's handling of a sensitive topic and a collaboration rooted in reclaiming the words of internet trolls to celebrate the beauty in diversity and bodies and experiences that aren't the industry norm."
"My only goal on this planet is to empower women through art and dialogue. I'm grateful to every woman who shared a quote and so disappointed that our words were not honored. As a result, I will be making a donation to the charity of every woman's choice who was wronged with me and I hope that @revolve will join me with a contribution of their own," Dunham concluded.
"We messed up big," Revolve's Thursday statement began. "We are SO SORRY for hurting and offending you."
"The intention was not to promote or endorse these hateful words, but instead to empower all women by making them understand that even the world's most beautiful and successful women have been subject to hateful messages from internet bullies," it continued.
"And through a horrible oversight on our part, the hateful comment shaming Paloma for her weight was not shot on an appropriate model, and we are horrified and incredibly sorry that we made this mistake," the company said, WXIA noted.
In turn, Revolve pledged $20,000 to Girls Write Now, the organization the clothing line was supposed to aid, which describes its mission as helping "underserved young women to find their voices through the power of writing and community."
"As soon as we realized that we had done, we pulled the product and canceled the line," Revolve said, "before a single style was sold."
Dunham, who produced, wrote and starred in the TV show "Girls" and maintains the news outlet "Lenny Letter," has positioned herself as a champion of liberal feminism, campaigning heavily for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections. However, Dunham's feminist credentials were called into question last November when in the midst of the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse by men, one of her newsletter's writers resigned and blasted Dunham for having taken the side of accused rapists instead of siding with their female accusers, Sputnik reported.
