Monday, November 19, 2012

Victoria's Secret's PR nightmare

Photo via Fashionista

Victoria's Secret recently found themselves in the middle of a PR firestorm. According to Ragan's PR Daily article, one of the company's models, Karlie Kloss, flounced down the runway in a racy, Native American Runway outfit at their annual fashion show last week. Immediately after pictures aired from the fashion show, people flocked to the Victoria's Secret Facebook page and expressed their anger and shock. The company has apologized and decided not to air the outfit during the televised broadcast December 4 on CBS.

According to Fashionista, the fact that Victoria's Secret did not foresee this debacle is rather unfortunate. Just a few days before the fashion show, Gwen Stefani and No Doubt were forced to pull down their latest music video due to the fact that she was wearing "sexy Native American garb".

Native American women currently experience the highest rate of sexual murder and they saw this outfit as further promotion of the violent act against them. Both Victoria's Secret and Karlie Kloss tweeted regarding the matter and expressed their most sincerest apologies:


Although Victoria's Secret can not change the fact that they messed up, I feel that the company handled the PR crisis in an adequate fashion. They admitted that they had made a mistake and apologized immediately. There will forever be pictures of the outfit, but the fact that it will not appear in the televised segment demonstrates that they do care about their fans, listen to their complaints, and do not wish to offend anyone. Additionally, the usage of Twitter indicates that they are mindful of all forms of communication and strive to not neglect any form of social media, which is extremely beneficial to one's reputation.

To read the full article, click here.

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