Louis Vuitton faces backlash for selling scarf inspired by traditional Palestinian keffiyeh
Louis Vuitton is facing criticism for selling a scarf inspired by the Palestinian keffiyeh.
The brand sells the “monogram keffieh stole” for $705.
The black-and-white keffiyeh has become synonymous with Palestinian liberation movements.
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Louis Vuitton is facing backlash for selling a scarf inspired by the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh.
The luxury brand is selling the “monogram keffieh stole” for $705, saying on its website that it’s “inspired by the classic Keffieh and enriched with House signatures.”
“A jacquard weave technique is used to create the intricate Monogram patterns on its base of blended cotton, wool and silk,” the description on the Louis Vuitton site says. “Soft and lightweight with fringed edges, this timeless accessory creates an easygoing mood.”
Diet Prada, a popular Instagram account that seeks to expose wrongdoings in the fashion world, called out the designer in a post on Tuesday shared with its 2.7 million followers.
A post shared by Diet Prada ™ (@diet_prada)
The post included several photos of the traditional keffiyeh beside the Louis Vuitton stole. “So LVMH’s stance on politics is ‘neutral,’ but they’re still making a $705 logo-emblazoned keffiyeh, which is a traditional Arab headdress that’s become a symbol of Palestinian nationalism,” it said. “Hmmmm…”
The caption alluded to a statement sent to Diet Prada on May 21 after the model Bella Hadid posted about Palestinian causes on her Instagram account. Diet Prada quoted a source associated with LVMH as saying, “LVMH’s stance on politics is neutral, but they are not cancelling Bella’s contract.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, about 100,000 people had liked Diet Prada’s post about the stole.
Representatives at LVMH did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment on the criticism.
Khaled Beydoun, an author, scholar, and lawyer, criticized the scarf as disrespectful and exploitative in an Instagram post on Tuesday.
“Let me be clear, companies and designers like @virgilabloh have the right to make whatever they want to make within the bounds of legality,” Beydoun wrote, speaking of the brand’s artistic director, Virgil Abloh.
“I typically champion artistry and the freedom that comes with it,” Beydoun wrote. “But this is patently disrespectful and insensitive, on a myriad of levels.
“Especially right now. Amid 11 days of bombings, land dispossession and 215 Palestinians killed,” he continued. The UN has estimated that 58,000 Palestinians were internally displaced and made homeless in Gaza after a week of Israeli airstrikes in May.
Beydoun also suggested that Louis Vuitton’s color choices could have been a way of nodding to Israel’s flag and taking a political stance.
“The blue and white colors are either tone deaf or an insidious form of passive political commentary. Or a disastrous attempt at political irony,” he wrote in the post, which had over 61,000 likes on Wednesday.
A post shared by Khaled Beydoun (@khaledbeydoun)
The traditionally black-and-white keffiyeh, or kufiya, has become synonymous with Palestinian liberation movements. Hirbawi Textile Factory, which describes itself as the Palestinian territories' last and only keffiyeh factory, dubbed it “the unofficial Palestinian flag.”
The intricate pattern, according to the factory’s website, “is said to represent a fishing net, a honeycomb, the joining of hands, or the marks of dirt and sweat wiped off a worker’s brow, among other things.”
It also has symbolic significance for Palestinian communities. Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury, a Palestinian fashion designer, told The Guardian in 2019 that the scarf represented “dispossession, systematic displacement, extrajudicial killings [and] oppression.”
According to a Middle East Eye report, the origin of the fabric is uncertain. The news site reported that some say the keffiyeh, “sometimes called the hata in the Levant, has origins that pre-date Islam and can be traced back to Mesopotamia, when it was worn by Sumerian and Babylonian priests around 5,000 years ago.”
Anu Lingala, the author of the essay “A Sociopolitical History of the Keffiyeh,” told the publication that it was “traditionally associated with working classes,” while Jane Tynan, a cultural historian, said that it was used “as a tool to disguise the identity of the wearer from British authorities” and that it “became shorthand for the Palestinian struggle.”
Nasser-Khoury told The Guardian that designers co-opting the keffiyeh were not drawing from a “random design.”
“There is a context, there is a power imbalance,” he said.
He added: “You have people who were dispossessed in 1948 and made refugees and they still live in camps in Lebanon and then you use this garment, which carries all that pain, for personal advancement.”
Louis Vuitton blasted for ‘disgraceful’ keffiyeh with Israel flag colours
Worn throughout the Middle East region as a traditional Arabian headdress, the thick black and white chequered cloth or keffiyeh has become a symbol of resistance and solidarity in the Arab countries, particularly in Palestine. Signifying the Palestinian quest for self-determination, nationalism and struggle against the occupation of their land by Israel, the keffiyeh garnered widespread popularity courtesy Nobel Peace Prize awardee Yasser Arafat, then leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation or PLO, who wore it as the political symbol of resistance against the Israeli occupation and violence since 1948.
Traditionally, keffiyeh is folded diagonally into a triangle and worn draped over the head of rural Palestinian men as a turban or held in place with a circlet of rope called an agal and it rose to popularity further as Kanye West and David Beckham wore it to music festivals or shoots which inspired several high-end and high-street brands. Apart from also being seen loosely draped around the shoulder or fashioned around the necks, especially in recent cases when soccer players from all around the globe took their solidarity straight to the football pitch alarmed by the bloodshed and destruction in Gaza last month, catwalk star Gigi Hadid too was seen wearing it at pro-Palestinian march in Canada.
Bella Hadid & Gigi Hadid being vocal about every time Palestine under attack, they being outspoken. We need more celebrities like them! The world needs them, as good support. #FreePalestine❤💚 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/bKyw7gqt8J — Ubaidur Rahman (@Ubaid4R) May 16, 2021
French fashion house and luxury goods company, Louis Vuitton, raked up a controversy as it recently released a new Monogram Keffieh stole which is inspired by the classic Keffieh. Enriched with House signatures, a jacquard weave technique is used to create the intricate Monogram patterns on its base of blended cotton, wool and silk while its soft and lightweight with fringed edges makes the timeless accessory create an easygoing mood.
If the whopping price of the keffieh, that is $700, was not enough to spark a widespread outrage, its change of colours from thick black and white to blue and white which is also the colour of Israel’s flag, drew massive flak. Taking to their respective Twitter handles, the netizens blasted LVMH for cultural appropriation.
It soon gave birth to memes that carried the infamous explanation “if i don’t steal it someone else will”, by an Israeli settler who recently went viral for trying to take over a Palestinian’s house illegally. While one accused, “profiting off the oppressed people of Palestine is beyond disgraceful @LouisVuitton why don’t you speak up about the genocide & ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people (sic),” another tweeted, “@LouisVuitton is politically neutral when it comes to Palestine & Israel, but they’re totally cool w/ making money off the keffiyeh. There better be plans on donating the proceeds to Palestinian victims (sic).”
Check out Twitter’s reaction on Louis Vuitton’s new keffiyeh here:
@LouisVuitton is politically neutral when it comes to Palestine & Israel, but they’re totally cool w/ making money off the keffiyeh.
There better be plans on donating the proceeds to Palestinian victims. pic.twitter.com/vLbH1iEPO3 — Nancy 🖤 نانسي (@tdesignerwth) June 1, 2021
Where there is 💰 involved Culture and Religion are of No consequence to these people selling the Keffiyeh as per Louis Vuitton has done !
It is yet another slap in the face to the Palestinian 🇵🇸 people by Israeli and their Supporters !
👣🐾🐨✊🌿🌳🌏 https://t.co/cskpKJzVLs — lucaDiGiorgio 🐨 ✊ Save the Planet 🌍Anti LNP. (@lucaDiGiorgio9) June 2, 2021
@LouisVuitton @virgilabloh Selling a keffiyeh in Israeli colors with a white model is like selling a du rag with a confederate flag for $700 and using a white model to sell it. I’m shook at the sheer audacity. All proceeds should go to #Palestinians who have lost homes and lives. pic.twitter.com/HICaJbm9bS — Regina Victor (@OfficialReginaV) June 2, 2021
@LouisVuitton It is so disrespectful to sell the symbol of Palestinian culture, the keffiyeh for a ridiculous amount of $705, without acknowledging that it belongs to Palestinian culture. At least acknowledge the Palestinian people and their struggle. Talk about appropriation. — . (@pastastromboli1) June 2, 2021
This is however, not the first time that a fashion brand has been called out for cultural appropriation. In 2016, Israeli brand Dodo Bar Or triggered a public outcry for using the keffiyeh fabric to make “sexy dresses, flouncy skirts, hippy draping gowns”. Cultural appropriation is controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from minority cultures without any benefit to them.
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Louis Vuitton faces backlash for its $705 ‘keffiyeh-inspired’ scarf
French luxury house Louis Vuitton is in hot water for one of its latest men’s scarves.
On its US website, the label offers a blue, jacquard-woven stole decorated with both the Vuitton monogram design and the distinctive checked pattern of the traditional keffiyeh. The scarf is priced at $705.
Louis Vuitton describes the scarf on its website as being “inspired by the classic keffiyeh and enriched with House signatures”. The company says that the scarf, made from wool, cotton and silk, is lightweight and soft, and that it “creates an easygoing mood".
The backlash has been swift, however, with the industry watchdog Instagram account Diet Prada calling out Vuitton for the product, placing an image from Vuitton’s website alongside the Wikipedia definition of the keffiyeh.
The pattern is used as a traditional headscarf in the region, often worn by Arab men. It’s also regarded as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism, and solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
At the time of writing, the scarf in question was available on Louis Vuitton’s US website, but not the UAE site.
With 2.7 million followers, Diet Prada regularly highlights issues of plagiarism, racism, sexual misconduct and cultural appropriation within the fashion industry, demanding high-profile figures, designers and brands take responsibility, apologise and, where appropriate, pay reparations.
What started as a small account in 2014 has grown to a serious fact-checker of the industry, and has been involved in many high-profile spats with major fashion brands.
This is not the first time Louis Vuitton has been called out. In February, it released the Jamaican Stripe Jumper , in homage to the Jamaican flag, but in the wrong colours.
Further down the fashion food chain, this week high-street stores Zara and Anthropologie faced claims of cultural appropriation for using traditional Mexican motifs.