The Bag Lady: Zara recalls bag with Swastika design

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Zara recalls bag with Swastika design

Woops - what in the world was going on in the designer's head when he/she decided to place a swastika amongst the loud embroidery on this Zara bag? Well, I'm not the only head spinning over the question; WWD reports that Zara "was forced to pull the bag from its shelves" after receiving complaints about the design. Bag Snob says "even more shocking is that it made its way to the 1,026 stores in 68 countries across the world!" However, it is unclear how many bags actually made it to the stores and how many stores carried the item. Zara release a statement, "Of course we apologise to anyone who was offended by the bag, and we will be withdrawing it from all our stores." Utter craziness.

Edit: Yes, surely the designer meant to reflect on the symbol as it is widely-used in Dharmic religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc) but the wider understanding of a swastika is as used by the Nazi regime. I'm quite impressed with ya'lls far-reaching cultural knowledge!

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Posted by on September 21, 2007 in News | Permalink

Comments

It's a bit of a shame really, the rest of the bag was pretty cute...

Posted by: Heather | September 21, 2007 4:50 PM

Too bad - the rest of the bag was adorable!

Posted by: Tracey | September 21, 2007 5:20 PM

My guess this was probably an attempt to use the pre-nazi meaning of the swastika, from Hinduism and Buddhism, that is, well-being and good luck. It is still used this way in India, for one thing.

If they really meant it in a "genocide" kind of way, that's pretty messed up. I just doubt it.

Posted by: Miff | September 21, 2007 5:25 PM

I agree with Miff, I'm sure it was meant to be used in that other way.

Posted by: WendyB | September 21, 2007 7:30 PM

Miff, I was just about to post the same thing.

The swastika really was misappropriated by the Nazis and actually has much older Vedic roots. Hitler pretty much took it and gave it new meaning for his own purposes. It's really too bad as the older meaning of the symbol is one of well-being and could really be considered as a beautiful part of the design.

Posted by: Aliya | September 21, 2007 7:58 PM

In the Royal Ontario Museum, there is a large Buddha statue (at least, I think it's a Buddha--it's in the Chinese wing of the museum) with a swastika on it.

I think it's ridiculous that just because ONE culture misused it, it's become taboo, considering its very different meanings for other cultures.

Posted by: Kioewen | September 23, 2007 4:38 AM

Swastika with the sun, I am Jain and I know about Hitler too.We use them in our temples,symbol of good health, wealth and for wishing prosperous new year to each other in whole India, and Red Swastika would be the color of choice, people should be open-minded about cultures, just very unfortunate coincidence. This bag would sell like hot cakes in India and nobody would turn an eye, ONLY will get jealous of the person that they have good design.

Posted by: Nidhi | September 27, 2007 12:50 AM

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