DUBAI: US fashion designer Jeremy Scott has come under fire online for his latest ad campaign featuring half-Palestinian model Gigi Hadid.
On Monday, the creative director of fashion house Moschino posted a shot from the campaign on Instagram and captioned the photograph — which featured a blue-painted Hadid wearing an orange suit — “the only thing illegal about this alien is how good she looks!”
Social media commenters quickly took the designer to task, asking him to change his caption in light of the current immigration issue at the US border.
Thousands of children have been taken from their parents since US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a policy that directed Homeland Security officials to refer all cases of illegal entry into the US for prosecution.
Stories spread of children being torn from their parents’ arms and parents not being able to find where they had been housed.
After a barrage of uproar, President Donald Trump signed an order last week to stop splitting immigrant families at the border that required a temporary halt to prosecuting parents and guardians, unless they had criminal history or the child’s welfare was in question.
In the context of the debate over the US’s immigration police, Scott was forced to update his caption to read:
“Alien nation! @gigihadid stars in my new @moschino campaign shot by Steven Meisel and styled by @carlynecerfdedudzeele (with) hair and make-up by @guidopalau and @patmcgrathreal. What is an ‘alien?’ The concept of my ad campaign is to bring attention to the US administration’s harsh stance toward ‘illegal aliens.’ I painted the models in my show and this campaign as a way to open a discussion on what exactly an ‘alien’ is — are they orange, blue, yellow, green? Does this matter? They are our friends, neighbors, co-workers, relatives and people we love.”
However, some social media commenters were having none of it, with one user posting their thoughts on Instagram.
“Your original comment was ‘the only thing illegal about this alien is how good she looks.’ We won’t forget that and changing this caption doesn’t change the fact (that) this whole campaign just brings you profit.”
Other users slammed the initial caption, with one Instagram commenter saying: “That caption is disgusting. You’re profiting on the suffering of people escaping persecution, poverty and death.”
“I don’t know why you thought that caption was cute but reconsider for real,” another Instagram user posted.
The campaign sees the likes of models Kaia Gerber and Vittoria Ceretti posing in 1960s, Jackie O-inspired outfits complete with pillbox hats and bobbed wigs while painted in various colors from head to toe.
However, the uproar online didn’t stop the young models from promoting the campaign on their social media accounts, with Gerber reposting a photograph of herself painted orange — with the caption “take me to your leader” — and Hadid sharing behind-the-scenes snaps via Instagram Stories.
It isn’t the first time Scott has used the gimmick — he also sent models who had been painted blue, green, orange and yellow down the runway during Moschino's fall 2018 show at Milan Fashion Week in February.
