News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Feb. 12, 2021: The French fashion house and luxury goods company, Louis Vuitton, is not having a good week.
On the heels of its cultural appropriation faux pas over a Jamaican flag coloured sweater gone wrong, Caribbean born singer and entrepreneur, has announced she is pausing her luxury maison, the Fenty maison line, with LVMH.
The agreement is reportedly mutual but comes less than two years after the big launch. “Rihanna and LVMH have jointly made the decision to put on hold the ready-to-wear activity, based in Europe, pending better conditions,” the company said in a brief statement.
Rihanna is said to be “sad” about having to put her Fenty fashion house on ice, but excited about her brand’s potential in other categories.
LVMH and Rihanna first unveiled the luxury maison in 2019. At the time, Rihanna called designing the inaugural line “an incredibly special moment” for the team.
LVMH is, however, roaring ahead with the Bajan star’s Savage x Fenty lingerie, backing with $115 million in new funding as well as Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin.
Rihanna’s lingerie brand posted revenue growth of more than 200 percent last year, and “increased its active VIP member base by more than 150 percent,” Savage x Fenty said in a statement.
LV came under fire earlier this week for selling a pullover sweater it claims was inspired by Jamaica’s national flag. Except, the expensive item featured the wrong colors.
The fashion house kicked off Black History Month with the fashion gaffe which has upset many. Instead of the green, yellow, and black of the Jamaican flag, the almost $1,700 unisex street style u-neck long sleeves sweater features three large stripes of green, yellow, and red.
The sweater’s incorrect design was reportedly first called out by the fashion critic Twitter account @pam_boy.
“I cannot stress enough how important it is to implement diversity as a value and not a symbol within fashion companies,” the user tweeted along with a photo of the sweater next to the Jamaican flag for comparison.
The account pointed out that the sweater looked closer to the design of the Rastafarian flag, a religious movement with roots in Jamaica, rather than the country’s official flag.
“So no one at Louis Vuitton googled the Jamaican flag?” Twitter user Black Women Matter wrote.
Even Bob Marley’s daughter, Cedella Marley, weighed in, noting the colours are of the Ethiopian flag not Jamaica’s.
Many are also outraged that the company is using Jamaica’s culture for profit.
Louis Vuitton has not commented on the uproar, but the sweater has been pulled from its online store. It is, however, still being sold on buyma.us.
Gucci last year has to pull a wool sweater from its stores last year after complaints that its oversized collar resembled blackface makeup, while Burberry apologized for putting a hoodie with strings tied in the shape of a noose on its London Fashion Week runway.
