Will the fashion faux pas ever end? Over the past few months, we’ve seen swathes of luxury design houses receive a lambasting over releasing designs that evoke racist imagery. There was that tasteless H&M monkey sweater campaign, Prada’s blackface keychain and last week’s Gucci blackface balaclava turtleneck. Now, Katy Perry has come under fire for releasing a shoe that resembles blackface.
Perry’s Ora Face Block Heel and Rue Face Slip-On Loafers are two shoes that feature protruding eyes, nose and lips. The shoes come in black and beige. It is the black pair that has received its fair share of backlash. The adornments on the shoe very much resemble blackface, the racist face-painting practice once used by white performers to mock enslaved Africans in minstrel shows.
As TMZ reports, sources connected to Perry have shared that “they were never intended to be offensive.” They’re just extraordinarily tone deaf. Thankfully, Perry has since pulled the shoes. “In order to be respectful and sensitive, the team is in the process of pulling the shoes.”
