Canadian yoga apparel company Lululemon Athletica came under fire this week after one of its employees endorsed an “offensive” and “inexcusable” T-shirt design.
The shirt in question was designed by American artist Jess Sluder. The back of the T-shirt featured a takeaway noodle box with bat wings. On the front, a smaller image showed the wings extending out from a pair of chopsticks. The sleeves featured the words “No thank you” stylised to resemble the font found on many Chinese restaurant signs.
The California-based Sluder dubbed the design “Bat Fried Rice” and was charging $60 a pop for the T-shirts. Sluder unveiled the shirts on Instagram, writing “Where did COVID-19 come from? Nothing is certain, but we know a bat was involved.”
Lululemon art director Trevor Fleming was so impressed with Sluder’s design that he included a purchase link in his Instagram bio. However, it wasn’t long before Lululemon customers starting to express their profound disapproval of Fleming’s cosign.
“So like, u not gonna address your damn racist ass problem u caused?” wrote one Instagram poster. Another post took a considerably harsher tack: “I just want you to know that I will never buy anything from here [sic] ever again and all the leggings I have I will burn. It’s one thing to be racist but it’s another to not apologize.”
The company was quick to respond. “The t-shirt design is not a lululemon product,” they wrote. “We apologize that an employee was affiliated with promoting an offensive t-shirt, and we take this very seriously. The image and the post were inappropriate and inexcusable. We acted immediately, and the person involved is no longer an employee of lululemon.”
The now-jobless Fleming has subsequently deleted his Instagram account, while Sluder has removed the T-Shirt from his website. He’s also done some soul searching. “As an artist I often toy with pushing boundaries with satirical work and I simply crossed the line,” Sluder wrote on Instagram. “I am deeply sorry to anyone who was offended or hurt by my actions.”
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