New York, New York, is a helluva town, and the New York City Commission on Human Rights finally figured out how to use this to its advantage. Among the many industries that call NY home, or at least their American home, is the fashion industry. It’s not that it has to be that way, but it just turned out that way. Somehow, Des Moines didn’t make the cut instead.
So a little known, and even less cared about, city agency, the NYCCHR became captive of the woke, where they spun new rules and regs to reinvent their little patch of earth to suit their sensibilities. From African hairstyles to forbidden words like “illegal alien,” they dictated what was (sniff) politically acceptable and what would cost a bundle if you didn’t behave their way.
When their focus was turned by a complaint of offense at a fashion window display, the fashion house of Prada, inexplicably, decided not to resist.
In December 2018, Chinyere Ezie, a civil rights lawyer, posted a picture on Twitter that seemed to encapsulate a year’s worth of racial and cultural faux pas from major fashion brands.
It showed the window of the Prada shop in downtown New York filled with Pradamalia figurines that resembled monkeys in blackface. “I don’t make a lot of public posts, but right now I’m shaking with anger,” Ms. Ezie, who works at the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote on Facebook.
Whether they “resembled monkeys in blackface” must be a personal call. People see what they want to see. It’s possible, but “resembled” does a lot of heavy lifting here unless you desperately seek things to make you shake with anger.
Even more curious is that Chinyere Ezie works for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which once upon a time, like the ACLU, cared about constitutional rights. It’s not obsessed with its own bastardized view of the Equal Protection Clause, where equal means the tyranny of the minority, and the rest of the Constitution can take a hike.
Upon Ezie’s complaints, the NYCCHR leaped into action.
In short order, Prada had done away with the offending objects, apologized and vociferously declared its intention to focus on diversity.
Perhaps the one overarching thing about fashion is it must be fashionable, and there are few things more fashionable than having your designs dictated by commissions. But Prada rushed to acquiesce.
The company will put all New York store employees—and company executives in Milan—through racial sensitivity training. Prada will also appoint a diversity and inclusion officer, subject to the commission’s approval. This person will be tasked with “reviewing Prada’s designs before they are sold, advertised or promoted in any way in the United States,” according to the terms of the agreement.
Note that the commission-approved commissar must approve all products “sold, advertised or promoted in any way in the United States,” which goes a bit beyond the Hudson and above 34th Street. So too does its dictates about whom Prada will allow to staff its Milan offices.
A year after signing the agreement, Prada is required to tell the commission “the demographic make-up” of its staff at every level, and summarize “Prada’s past and future activities aimed at increasing the number of people from protected classes under-represented in the fashion industry.”
Well, this brings new meaning to Coco Channel. But as it turns out, Prada wasn’t the first fashion house to succumb to the NYCCHR’s fashion sense, as its agreement “mirrors Gucci’s agreement.” And it clearly hasn’t had any negative impact on Gucci’s designs, as reflected in its Fall 2020 men’s collection.
It’s unclear whether this look has caught fire in Milwaukee as yet, but at least no one on the New York City Commission on Human Rights finds it offensive.