The Spanish fashion house Loewe has faced backlash over one of its new looks, a black-and-white striped shirt and pants, less than two weeks after it was made available, amid criticism that the ensemble looked like a uniform from a Nazi concentration camp.
The luxury brand apologised in its Instagram stories and stated that they were informed that one of their ensembles from Arts and Crafts ceramicist William De Morgan “could be misconstrued as referring to one of the most odious moments in the history of mankind”.
“It was absolutely never our intention and we apologize to anyone who might feel we were insensitive to sacred memories. The products featured have been removed from our commercial offering”, the firm said in the statement, without detailing, however, which items had been called off.
The move came shortly after a popular fashion blogger, Diet Prada, lambasted Loewe for the questionable design of the $1,840 piece made available on 14 November. The Instagrammer was “unable to see anything but concentration camp uniforms” in the collection meant to “capture a freedom of imagination”, as the post, which also features many critical comments, says.
“But with the particular stripe proportions and layout, uniform-style garments, and prominent chest patches, there’s not actually much left to the imagination when the resulting look is so uncannily disturbing… Loewe has week-old comments calling this out on post featuring a black and white image from @britishvogue ... when will we see a response?” the blogger said.