Fashion Label Lilly Pulitzer Under Fire For Fat-Shaming Photos Shown On Office Wall
Would you support a fashion label that feels like THIS about your plus size body?
This image was taken by New York Magazine’s The Cut at Lilly Pulitzer’s headquarters in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The media outlet released a feature story on Tuesday (5/26) on their website, taking readers behind the scenes at the brand’s main office via images taken by their photographer. This image was hanging in the personal workspace of an LP employee. That feature story can be found here.
The image has caused outrage with people taking to Twitter to express their feelings regarding this image, which to them, represents fat-shaming. Considering that Lilly Pulitzer recently collaborated with Target on a collection that included plus sizes, this has many not feeling so great about the brand.
The brand has since issued an official apology with Jane Schoenborn, Vice President of Creative Communications, Lilly Pulitzer stating:
“These illustrations were the work of one individual and were posted in her personal work area. While we are an employer that does encourage people to decorate their own space, we are a female-dominated company and these images do not reflect our values. We apologize for any harm this may have caused.”
Some are not finding this apology enough:
In an industry where plus size women are starting to feel like they’re scoring some wins with a few designers expanding into plus sizes, this image speak volumes. To see something like this is a reminder that there are still brands out there who still view designing for the plus size body to be something that should not be happening in the fashion world. Whether it was an employee’s image or not, it still reflects a person’s negative view of the plus size body. And the company has to be accountable in some manner because they allowed this to happen. Whether they like it or not, this person represents their brand by simply being an employee of the company.
Changing the views of people in the industry, including this LP employee, is not an easy task, especially when they have been accustomed to designing for one type of body. We can only hope that Lilly Pulitzer can learn from this experience in a positive way and that their employees will realize that body shaming is bad, regardless if it’s a plus size body or not. This “you can’t sit with us” mentality is simply unacceptable but unfortunately, still very prevalent.
We want to know what you think. Are people overreacting? Or do you feel that upper level executives should have stepped in and had this image removed from the start? Will this stop you from supporting the brand? Please sound off below and let us know.