The international clothing chain Zara removes from its website and stores a distressed denim miniskirt printed with an image that resembles the “alt-right” hate symbol Pepe the Frog.
The skirts are withdrawn on Tuesday following a social media backlash, The New York Times reports.
“The skirt is part of the limited Oil-on-Denim collection, which was created through collaborations with artists and is only available in selected markets,” a Zara spokesman tells the Times. “The designer of the skirt is Mario de Santiago, known online as Yimeisgreat. There is absolutely no link to the suggested theme.”
Santiago is a Spanish artist who told Zara that the frog face “came from a wall painting I drew with friends four years ago.”
In September, the Anti-Defamation League added the internet meme Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character that has become a popular symbol for white supremacists, to its online hate database. Images of the frog, variously portrayed with a Hitler-like mustache, wearing a yarmulke or a Ku Klux Klan hood, proliferated in hateful messages aimed at Jewish and other users on Twitter in the weeks leading up to its inclusion in the online hate database.
— JTA
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