A fashion fail can be quite a funny scandal for people to see, but can be disastrous for the company. Everyone makes mistakes, but it depends on how the PR team respond to these scandals and claims which can make or break the companies reputation.
1. OhPolly
During the peak of the COVID pandemic, OhPolly hosted a social media competition specifically for NHS workers as a thank you for their hard work. Simply all they had to do was like, share and comment on their social media post to win a care package and online party with ‘OhPolly influencers’. Simple, right?
It seems not, Lara Harper had won this competition but was working a 12 hour shift the day of the event and so could not attend. Sending a message to OhPolly explaining, they appeared insincere and wouldn’t even give her the care package for winning despite not being able to join the party.
Lara was furious with their response and took to social media, where fellow OhPolly followers were disgusted and some even shared similar stories about their unapologetic customer service team.
Shortly after this went viral, OhPolly responded appealing that it was a misunderstanding and they did want to give Lara the care package – coincidence? Not only that, other fashion brands like Pretty Little Thing responded to this scandal by tweeting Lara offering to send her a care package from themselves (quite a clever response).
OhPolly appeared insincere, unapologetic and their communication was far too slow, never mind the many previous times this kind of thing has happened. I think OhPolly’s apology was not enough, and the power of social media respectfully damaged their reputation more and instead of doing a good deed has essentially lost them more customers. They should have tried to accommodate Lara, and had a better strategy to deal with the crisis.
2. Kim K Skims
Kim Kardashian launched her own shapewear brand of intimates, bras and underwear in 2019, but quite quickly came under fire for cultural appropriation. Originally, Skims was names Kimono – a play on word for her own name. Unfortunately, she came under criticism for this.
Some people responded to this on social media, relaying that she was being disrespectful to the traditional Japanese clothing of kimono’s, which are long sleeved robes, nothing like Kim’s line. She was accused of being disrespectful towards the Japanese Culture and people started tweeting ‘hashtag Kim-O-No’.
Kim originally responded to this crisis by defending her name and not changing the label. She believed she had no intention of disrespecting and she had put a lot of time and effort into the name.
A Japanese woman responded to this ‘The shapewear doesn’t even resemble a Kimono – she just chose a word that has Kim in it – there’s no respect to what the garment actually means in our culture’.
Kim finally decided that she was going to change the name from Kimono to Skims – another play on word. Kim’s response was quite feeble, she point blank refused to change the name at first, causing more controversy until she decided to change it. She appeared insensitive, and should have responded accordingly at the beginning of the scandal.
3. Gucci
Gucci came under criticism by the public but specifically model Ayesha Tan Jones in the Spring/Summer 2020 fashion show in Milan. The model was walking for Gucci, but made a statement by protesting against their use of a straightjacket in the runway as being insensitive to mental health.
Ayesha held up the palms of her hands during her walk to show the words ‘Mental health is not fashion’. She was furious, along with other models who particularly struggle with mental health, that a major fashion brand would use the imagery for a ‘fleeting fashion moment’.
The model described her feelings of disgust for Gucci’s poor taste as straightjackets were a symbol for indescribable events in history that was used when mental health wasn’t understood as it was today. Ayesha said: “presenting these struggles as props for selling clothes in today’s capitalist climate is vulgar, unimaginative and offensive to the millions of people”.
Gucci had hit a nerve with this collection, and to demonstrate this Ayesha and other models donated to different mental health charities after this incident.
Gucci responded to this via an Instagram post “uniforms, utilitarian clothes, normative dress, including straightjackets, were included in the show as the most extreme version of a uniform dictated by society and those who control it”. Gucci went on to explain that these garments were specifically for the runway, and would not be available for sale to consumers.
From my view, I think this was distasteful from Gucci, to present garments from a time in society which was inhumane to do so on the runway. But what do you think? Was this a statement of how far society has come, or a poor judgement from Gucci? Let me know in the comments below about all three fashion scandals!
Emily x
PR Fashion Label 
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