Alexander Wang photo via ThreadTrend
Hot on the heels of Obama’s ‘teachable’ race moment- an Alexander Wang request – and a personal thank you
Dear Shaded Viewers,
Hot on the heels of Obama’s remark about the Gates affair racism still haunts America even after Obama’s election. Which ever side of the argument you are on, it is clear that we still have a lot to learn about racism.
A well respected stylist requested clothes yesterday from Alexander Wang for an honored and respected singer that happens to be a woman of color. She received the e mail listed below within 20 seconds of her e mail request. The story so totally disgusted me that I decided to publish the 3 e mails. The first is from the PR asst, then the stylist’s reponse and finally a thank you from the same PR assistant who was happy to regain her spine and with it her integrity. For obvious reasons the performer, stylist and PR assistant will go unnamed. Of course Alexander Wang is welcome to put forward his own explanation of this unfortunate situation and I would be more than happy to publish it in this post.
Reply From the PR Asst to sylist’s request:
Unfortunately due to our limited number of samples none of these are available right now for your shoot dates!
Thank you for your request and I look forward to working with you in the future.
PR Assistant
From the Stylist in response to PR Assistant’s e mail:
Thank you for your quick decision, I am a stylist, whom through out my career, living and working in the industry for 18 years in Europe, cannot imagine such an obviously personal response. As we are referring to the brand ALEXANDER WANG, it sems that he has no intention of ever supporting such singer/celebrities like ______________.and others like her, with whom give him the ground to achieve success outside of the US. How disappointing, that he has allowed this sort of personal decision to be made. As a publisher and editor of my own magazine, I could never underestimate the response or reputation of this matter and of course you are, as a PR asst. forced to send this response by the order of Alexander Wang himself. How shocking and embarrassing this is…wow, All the best, ______________
From the same PR Asst:
I want to thank you for your email yesterday. I had been struggling to keep my integrity intact as PR assistant at that company and your email gave me the confidence yesterday to walk out entirely. You are entirely right about Alexander Wang, and I am proud to no longer be associated with the company. I can now regain my spine and walk tall again.
Thank you again.
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Tags: A Shaded View On Fashion, Alexander Wang, Diane Pernet, Racism
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what do we know?
according to this information: wang turned down a stylist for an individual who is
1. black
2. a woman
3. entertainer
4. possibly an american performerthis is bad. bad. bad. bad. someone page samantha jones. A public relations crisis is now in full mode for A. Wang.
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Wang is totally chelsea/meatpacking queen… sounds like his PR agency was like “you need to appeal to the downtown hipster” and they made his image up
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I don’t get this post. Who is the actress?
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It’s essentially an exchange between a stylist and AW’s PR people. Everyone has been kept anonymous for obvious reasons.
- The stylist’s request was denied in a somewhat rude way (the PR girl clearly lied as 20 seconds is not enough time to check availability). That in itself is not out of the ordinary.
-However the stylist replied back with accusations between the lines that AW harbors prejudice towards certain kinds of people. This also is not that out of the ordinary.
-What IS strange is that the PR assistant then validated the stylist’s accusations and then quit her job.
It’s a very tricky situation for a number of reasons. I’m anxious to see how AW will respond.
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I never said he was a racist , I only raised the issue. Of course the PR could have meant a number of things, no to pop stars of her level, no to musicians in general, no to r&b stars or what ever. I merely posted the exchange between the stylist and the asst PR. I wanted a comment from Mr. Wang as there is always another perspective. All the best, Diane
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Ohhhh please! Everybody is always quick to call someone a racist.
The entertainer was probably a has been or somebody that he doesn’t want to wear or represent his brand.
If alex was racist why would he have Foxy Brown perform at his after party a year ago? Whom he adores and loves.
Plus do you actually think that alex is sitting around approving every PR requests that come through?
This has to be bogus.
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It is not bogus but let’s say it is up for interpretation. The stylist is someone I know for decades and not a drama queen. On the other hand the powers that be at Wang could possibly have just not wanted this particular performer to wear his clothes for any of a number of reasons and yes, not likely that Alex approves each request that goes out. None the less it was the actual e mail exchange that went down between the designer and the PR assistant. Clearly the PR asst was not happy there before this incident occurred and this incident was the final straw that broke the camels back, to be cliche, and not the only reason why she quit. All the best, Diane
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I agree with kevin,
I remember Alex Wang personally inviting Foxy Brown to perform at his party not too long ago also, it was on video and he’s a big fan of hers.
I doubt that this was Wang’s personal choice or decision. The girl may have made this quick decision herself and was so shocked at the response that it frightened her into quitting and then in turn, put the blame on the company in her response. Just a theory BTW.
Whatever the case, Wang should respond promptly before things get out of hand.
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I strongly doubt that Alexander Wang himself was the one behind the PR’s response…like Diane said, their reasons for not lending could be a lot of things, not all of which had to do with race (i.e. the singer not being considered a person who ‘fit the image’ of the brand or something like that). Years ago, some designer (not sure if it was Tom Ford or someone else) flatly refused to lend clothes to Victoria Beckham, blatantly stating that she didn’t fit their image, but then she went and bought them at full price and wore them anyway, and no one said anything about that. I suppose the fact that singer X is a woman of colour is what leads to automatic presumptions that racism may be involved..
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any response from Wang yet? would responding to this mean that he’s accepting any guilt whatsoever? would it be better to remain silent?
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It looks like Diane took her post down, actually. Understandable as it seems that her original intent was being misconstrued.
I don’t think Alex is racist, (though I think everyone harbors some sort of prejudice) and I doubt he ever deals with his own PR, but this exchange raises some eyebrows. It’s an issue that’s not unique to Wang’s PR but endemic to the fashion industry.
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show me the actual emails and tell me who the people in question are. ‘For obvious reason’ omitting the names isn’t good enough. For one, we don’t know that an email response was received in 20 seconds nor that the PR person’s follow-up email was even received. Show me the email headers.
Racism isn’t brought up until the supposed black performer’s stylist’s response. Then we get a paragraph that is supposedly from an email without any evidence of their existence. Also, how did the blog’s author come by these emails? Too many things left unanswered and unclear for any finger pointing to occur.
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RLee,
I have 100% faith in Diane’s integrity and that’s why I reposted the exchange on this blog. I think you can clearly understand why names can’t be named. She explained the details and I believe them. Like Diane already mentioned, no one is being declared a racist, but this exchange certainly opens up the discussion. And like Diane already mentioned, it’s not clear why exactly the assistant quit only that she did after this incident, but something the stylist said struck a note. It is what it is.
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I am not questioning Diane’s integrity in the slightest, just the source. But as you say, it is what it is. I’m just so over political correctness and racism. I do realize that racism still exists, but I do so tire over the constant cries of it; as well as being ever so careful not to say the wrong thing in case someone take it wrong.
In all truth, I wish this subject didn’t need to be brought up. But sadly I don’t see the era of mutual acceptance happening in our lifetime, unless of course aliens invade from outer space and give us all; white, black, asian, human; someone to hate equally.
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Hmmm…. sounds like an issue that should be followed up….
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I’m sure the people who are the victims of racism are “over it” as well, but not talking about it, isn’t gonna make it go away. Honest dialogue is the only way to move forward with mutual respect for the common humanity of all of us.
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Does anyone write clearly anymore? I have no idea what this post is about.
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People in the fashion industry are such cowards. It’s rare for anyone to put their names behind what they say. This is exactly the reason why nothing ever changes when it comes to various issues that have plagued the industry for years like eating disorders, racism in fashion, tales of sexual abuse, drugs, so on and so forth. Everything is just pure hearsay or he said/she said.
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