Spanish retailer brand Zara is facing a severe backlash for its tone-deaf recent advertising campaign. Images published by Zara’s social media handle show statues with missing limbs surrounded by rubble prompting social media users to believe that they have been compared to the destruction in Gaza.
The campaign, named The Jacket, is part of the brand’s Atelier series, which it describes as “a limited edition collection from the house celebrating our commitment to craftsmanship and passion for artistic expression”.
Photographed by Tim Walker with art direction by French-American company Baron & Baron, the depressing images feature American model Kristen McMenamy wearing a series of different jackets in a gloomy white room, surrounded by wooden crates and concrete rubble with rocks and a cardboard cutout eerily close to an upside-down map of Palestine.
Statues with missing limbs and eerie mannequins wrapped in white cloth ignited netizens who claimed that the brand is profiting off Palestinians’ misery.
One image, which appears to have been deleted from the campaign on the Zara website, depicted McMenamy wearing a studded leather jacket, holding a mannequin above her head, wrapped in plastic.
The unsettling portrayals of the bodies wrapped in white cloth caused social media users to draw parallels between the statue and the body of a Muslim in the Islamic burial attire or the ‘kafan.’
Zara has yet to respond to the backlash.
how disgusting the world we live in,
how disgusting humans are when there is no humanity. #BoycottZara pic.twitter.com/u4F10hF5No— نور ???????? (@noor_a25) December 9, 2023
There isn’t any words that can describe how savage they are !
I can’t see any fashion. I can see war and death !
compare between the first photo and the photo at the end !!pic.twitter.com/bnzESTxuhj#Boycottzara#FreePalestine— أم يعقوب (@ElhamKw) December 9, 2023
I usually don’t post such pictures but after seeing this I couldn’t stop myself from protesting. How such a big brand do this for publicity stunt for advertisement , this is against the humanity. No humanity left in these scumbags.???? #BoycottZara pic.twitter.com/5yp8Mmv8eG
— Iqra. (@weird_mystery_) December 10, 2023
Zara was founded in Spain in 1975. The clothing brand has more than 2,000 outlets in more than 90 countries, with multiple stores in the UAE including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah.
Zara claims that the campaign “is an exercise in concentrated design that is conceived to showcase the finest aspects of Zara’s creative and manufacturing capabilities, ZARA ATELIER offers one garment, six ways – and with unlimited possibilities.”
In October 2022, Palestinians launched a campaign to boycott Zara, after its Franchise holder in “Israel”, Joey Schwebel, met with members and head of the extremist Jewish Forces party Itamar Ben-Gvir, to support him in the Israeli elections.
