Prada is an Italian luxury brand found by Mario Prada in 1913. Prada started out as a family business specializing in suitcases, handbags and steamer trunks. They were popular with the Italian royal family. Miucci Prada, granddaughter of Mario Prada, inherited the brand in 1978 where she would become the creative director and start expanding on clothing and accessories. Her rise to fame came from creating Pocono nylon bags in 1984 that would become an instant staple. Miucci is credited for introducing such a durable and water resistant material to the scene. 

 

Prada is considered a leading brand in the industry from winning awards such as the Prestigious CFDA International award in 2004, International Designer of the Year by British Fashion Council in 2013, and many more. What make Prada an exciting brand is Miucci tends to not follow trends but reinvents Prada's style each season. Miucci has been known for making eccentric yet ugly chic clothing. She's motivated by making fashion statements with a deeper meaning and not keeping it consistent. In simpler terms, the brand is constantly changing it up but still maintaining a wearable element.  

 

But recently Prada would get into some controversy for putting out a not-so wearable accessory that would be displayed in stores and online. 

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Prada debuted their Pradamalia characters line which resemble variations of animal robot hybrids. The inspiration for the accessory said on their website was, "Inside the imaginary futuristic Prada Labs, a team of researchers set out to study Prada DNA that has proven to be so extraordinarily generative for over a century. The result of these experiments is Pradamalia, a new family of mysterious tiny creatures that are one part biological, one part technological, all parts Prada." In concept, it's a relatively cute and harmless product. Until Chinyere Ezie, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, noticed something completely familiar about one of their characters. What was displayed in their New York store was a Pradmalia brown monkey figure with big red lips. In a public Facebook and Twitter post, Ezie called out Prada for insensitively replicating this monkey figure in resemblance to many black caricatures that were used in racist imagery to dehumanize and oppress black people in the past. This post will go down in visual culture history as proof of how high fashion ignores racism. It's very telling of how European brands are still not culturally aware and don't value cultural sensitivity. They purposely put this black face monkeys online and in stores with intentions of selling it...

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Ezie would hashtag, #STOPBLACKFACE. 

 

So why are black (dark) faces (or figures) with red lips immediately linked to blackface? Well because those specific features are historically known as characteristics of racist black caricatures. Black caricatures in America dates back to minstrel shows, slavery, and racist propaganda. These visuals exaggerate how black people look to reduce them to a false narratives of savages and subhuman. Also black people were compared to apes and monkeys as way to see them as primitive and animalistic. It would reproduce stereotypes against the black race in the name of white supremacy, slavery, and racism. 

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Just to name an example of a Black caricature, Ezie compared the Prada's monkey features to Sambo. Sambo is a character from the 1899 children’s book, The Story of Little Black Sambo, written and illustrated by Scottish author Helen Bannerman. According to Jim Crow Museum, "Sambo was depicted as a perpetual child, not capable of living as an independent adult. The coon acted childish, but he was an adult; albeit a good-for-little adult. Sambo was portrayed as a loyal and contented servant. Indeed, Sambo was offered as a defense for slavery and segregation." 

 

Prada put out the monkey with big red lips without doing basic research. The communication of this figure isn't some innocent fun toy. It has the visual markers of black face. The outrage online and in real life is justified because imagery like black caricatures shouldn't exist at all, especially today. It represents a horrible history of oppression and unwarranted humiliation. It just goes out to show how their brand management team lacks the social awareness or maybe they thought people wouldn't notice it. Once Ezie's post gained traction and went viral online. Prada issued an apology on twitter and in a letter. They immediately took down the Pradamalia character and promised their commitment to diversity and cultural inclusion.

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Respect Black History and Stop The Racist Imagery 

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