Burberry Apologizes For Nooselike Knot On Fashion Hoodie
A Burberry model wearing a hoodie with a cord tied like a noose at the Autumn/Winter 2019 fashion week runway show in London. Company leaders have apologized for the garment.
Vianney Le Caer/Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP
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The top officers of the fashion giant Burberry are apologizing for clothing a model in a hoodie with a cord knotted in the shape of a noose at the company’s London Fashion Week show on Sunday.
Initial reaction against the hoodie and nooselike drawstring came from one of the company’s own models. Burberry has dropped the item from its collection.
“We are deeply sorry for the distress caused by one of the products … featured in our A/W 2019 runway collection Tempest,” Burberry CEO Marco Gobbetti said in an emailed statement. “Though the design was inspired by the marine theme that ran throughout the collection, it was insensitive and we made a mistake.”
Burberry’s creative director, Riccardo Tisci, also apologized.
“While the design was inspired by a nautical theme, I realise that it was insensitive. It was never my intention to upset anyone. It does not reflect my values nor Burberry’s and we have removed it from the collection,” he said.
Their apologies came after a backlash beginning with model Liz Kennedy, who posted her objection on Instagram. She was not the model who wore the outfit.
“Suicide is not fashion,” Kennedy wrote. “It is not glamorous nor edgy and since this show is dedicated to the youth expressing their voice, here I go. Riccardo Tisci and everyone at Burberry it is beyond me how you could let a look resembling a noose hanging from a neck out on the runway.”
She blamed the company’s leadership with ignoring “impressionable youth,” adding, “let’s not forget about the horrifying history of lynching either.”
Kennedy also made it clear that she was “extremely triggered” by the hoodie and noose for personal reasons.
“Feeling as though I was right back where I was when I was going through an experience with suicide in my family,” she added.
Kennedy wrote that when she asked to speak to somebody about the outfit she was told to write a letter and that “nobody cares about what’s going on in your personal life so just keep it to yourself.”
In his statement, Gobbetti said that he called Kennedy to apologize to her.
Burberry is the most recent company to come under fire for fashion missteps.
Last week Gucci withdrew a sweater with an oversized collar critics likened to a blackface image. Late last year Prada dropped a line of merchandise resembling monkeys with black faces and red lips.
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (en Español: 1-888-628-9454; deaf and hard of hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting 741741.
How One Woman Is Working To Educate Parents On Vaccinations
Public health advocates have struggled to change the minds of these so called anti-vaxxers. But one South Carolina woman has a different approach: reaching parents before they even become parents.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
An outbreak of measles in Washington and Oregon has refocused attention on parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids, often known as anti-vaxxers. Public health advocates have struggled to change these parents’ minds. One South Carolina woman has a different approach. She is reaching out to people before they even become parents. Alex Olgin of member station WFAE has the story.
ALEX OLGIN, BYLINE: In 2017, Kim Nelson had just moved her family back to her hometown in South Carolina. Moving boxes were still scattered around. While her two young daughters played, Nelson scrolled through a newspaper article on her phone. It said religious exemptions for vaccines had jumped nearly 70 percent in recent years in their part of the state, around Greenville. She yelled to her husband in the other room.
KIM NELSON: David, you have to get in here. I can’t believe this because, you know, I just – all my mom friends had vaccinated. I’d never encountered somebody who didn’t.
OLGIN: Nelson had her immunizations, and so did her kids. But this news scared her. She didn’t want anyone in her hometown to get sick. Nelson decided she had to do something.
NELSON: I very much believe that if you have the ability to advocate, then you have to. The onus is on us if we want change.
OLGIN: Like a lot of moms, Nelson had spent hours online. And she knew how easy it was to fall down an Internet hole into the world of fake studies and scary stories.
NELSON: As somebody who just cannot stand wrong things being on the Internet, if I saw something with vaccines, I was very quick to chime in, that’s not true, or no, that’s not how that works. I usually got banned.
OLGIN: Nelson started her own group for South Carolina parents. She began posting scientific articles online, but then she thought it would be best to zero in on moms that were still on the fence about vaccines.
NELSON: It’s easier to pull a hesitant parent over than it is somebody who is firmly anti-vax. They feel validated by that choice. It’s part of their community. It’s part of their identity.
OLGIN: And the most important thing was timing – reaching moms during pregnancy when they’re actually going online to figure out how to keep their babies healthy. Nelson latched onto one study that showed 90 percent of expectant women have made up their minds on vaccines by the time they were six months pregnant. After that, it’s kind of too late.
NELSON: They’re not going to a pediatrician. Their OBGYN is probably not speaking to the pediatric vaccine schedule. So where are they going? They’re going online.
OLGIN: Before parents got bad information, Nelson would be there first with facts – online, but also in person. She rented out a room at the public library and advertised on mom forums. She was nervous that the anti-vaxxers might show up.
NELSON: Are they here to rip me a new one, or are they here to learn about vaccines? And I just decided if they’re here, I’m going to give them good information.
OLGIN: Amy Morris was pregnant, but she drove an hour and a half to attend the class. It wasn’t her first pregnancy. She already had three kids. But this time around, she was nervous about vaccines. In Nelson’s class, she learned the risks of not vaccinating.
AMY MORRIS: That spoke to me more than anything.
OLGIN: Now, holding her healthy 8-month-old son Thorin on her lap, she says she’s glad she went because she was feeling vulnerable.
MORRIS: I always knew it was the right thing to do. I was listening to that fear monster in the back of my head.
OLGIN: Nelson says that fear is what the anti-vaccine community feeds on. She’s learned to ask questions to help parents get at the root of their anxiety.
NELSON: I do think they appreciate it when you meet them sympathetically, and you don’t just try to blast facts down their throat.
OLGIN: Nelson is now trying to get local hospitals to integrate that vaccine talk into their birthing classes. And she’s studying for a master’s in public health and even considering a run for office. For NPR News, I’m Alex Olgin in Greenville, S.C.
SHAPIRO: And this story is part of a partnership between NPR, Kaiser Health News and WFAE.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
USA Gymnastics Announces New CEO, The Fourth In Less Than 2 Years
USA Gymnastics has hired a new CEO: the embattled organization’s fourth leader in the past two years. The organization is trying to get beyond a widening sexual abuse scandal.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today, USA Gymnastics named its fourth CEO in less than two years. The new leader of USA Gymnastics is Li Li Leung. She will be leaving a job as an executive with the NBA to take the role. She’s also a former collegiate gymnast. Reporter Alexandra Starr joins us to talk about her appointment. Hi there.
ALEXANDRA STARR, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: So USA Gymnastics has pretty much been in freefall since news broke in 2016 that former team doctor Larry Nassar had molested hundreds of athletes. He’s now behind bars for life. So where do things stand at USA Gymnastics today?
STARR: Things have been bad. The organization has been leaderless for months. In the fall, the U.S. Olympic Committee started the process of decertification. That basically meant that USA Gymnastics would no longer be the organization overseeing the sport. And then 2 1/2 months ago, USA Gymnastics declared bankruptcy.
SHAPIRO: That is quite a string of events. What impact did the bankruptcy have?
STARR: It put the dozens of lawsuits that had been filed against the organization on ice, and it also put a halt to the U.S. Olympic Committee’s effort to decertify USA Gymnastics. But now the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee says she’s very hopeful Leung can turn things around. So it looks like the organization is going to get another chance.
SHAPIRO: You have been covering USA Gymnastics in depth. Do you think she can turn things around?
STARR: She’s certainly saying the right things. This is what she said on a press call today.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CALL)
LI LI LEUNG: I have bled. I have sweated. I have cried alongside my teammates, alongside other gymnasts. And it breaks my heart to see the state that the sport is in today, and that is why I stepped forward.
STARR: She says she wants USA Gymnastics to be more athlete-centric. And she also pointed to settling lawsuits with Larry Nassar’s survivors as one of her top priorities. All that said, the attorney representing most of those survivors was scathing about her appointment, so I – we can expect more conflict ahead.
SHAPIRO: So that’s what the attorney representing the survivors said. Has there been much reaction from the survivors themselves, the people who were abused by Larry Nassar?
STARR: Some have been coming forward and saying that they were not consulted on this appointment. And they seem to be arguing at this point that they’re concerned that she is not going to be a real agent of change.
SHAPIRO: Do you think she might have more success than the string of executives who have been cycling through this position?
STARR: Look. I think she is better prepared for this job than the last two people we’ve seen. The last CEO, former Congresswoman Mary Bono, lasted less than a week in the job (laughter). So I think she’s going to improve on those performances. At the same time, the organization has been in such disarray for so long, and reforming it is going to be such a heavy lift. We’ll have to see if anyone can turn this around. So we’ll be watching as we see how she moves forward as we move into, you know, Olympic preparation time.
SHAPIRO: Just to ask a bigger picture question here, there will be gymnasts in the United States competing at international levels whether or not USA Gymnastics as an organization survives. Why is it so important for somebody – anyone – to turn this organization around?
STARR: That’s a good question, Ari. I mean, something that is really remarkable is how extraordinary the women’s gymnastics team is. You know, they’ve just won – look at them. You know, they’ve won gold medal after gold medal. They cleaned up at the world championships last year. At the same time, this so-called national governing body, these – USA Gymnastics plays a role in developing a pipeline and staging these tournaments and getting people together for these camps. So it’s not stuff we necessarily see, but it is important work. And I think people who are advocates for the sport really do want to see this organization turn around.
SHAPIRO: That’s reporter Alexandra Starr. Thank you very much.
STARR: Thank you.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
