Supported by Business Day To Avoid More Racist Hoodies, Retailers Seek Diversity Photo Annie Wu was hired as H&M’s diversity manager after the company was taken to task for a hoodie that raised complaints of racism. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times Every once in a while, tucked into the stream of speedily made garments rushed into stores, designs with shockingly bad taste stand out: a shirt comparing women to dogs at Topman, symbols of the Holocaust on a top at Zara, a slogan that trivializes sexual consent on a piece at Forever 21, or words like “slave” and “slut” used as decorative details on T-shirts at ASOS and Missguided.
Brands, even as they offer mea culpas, rarely explain how such blunders come to pass. But problematic designs seem to repeatedly slip past layers of buyers, designers, stylists, marketers and managers before being caught by consumers.
Retail experts blame a heated competitive environment, where companies, many of them based in Europe, are spread t..