发信人: roy_young(風呂中男子)
整理人: roy_young(2002-02-26 18:17:06), 站内信件
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Tommy Rot
Claim: Designer Tommy Hilfiger shocked the world when
he appeared on Oprah and said, "If I knew that Blacks
and Asians were going to wear my clothes, I would have never
designed them."
Status: False.
Origins: Rumors that Tommy Hilfiger made a racist
remark exploded onto the Internet in the fall of 1996
after a news article purporting to be from a Philippines
tabloid began making the online rounds. These self-same
rumors had been in circulation at least nine months earlier,
but the appearance of this article brought them to
critical mass.
According to Cristina Peczon (author of the article),
the revealing remark happened on CNN Style with Elsa
Klensch, during an interview with both Hilfiger and Ralph
Lauren on the latest fashion trends:
Hilfiger then supposedly butted in then
with a comment, something like it is one
thing for one's label to go popular
worldwide, but there are some people who just
don't look well in "their" designer clothes.
Hilfiger then allegedly named several Asian
races, apparently saying that he preferred if
"these people" wouldn't wear their line --
particularly Filipinos!
Though many were up in arms about this article (there
were calls for a boycott of Hilfiger products), no one
was ever quite sure what the designer had said, who he'd
said it to, or even which ethnic group he'd slammed. One
version had him saying, "If I knew that Blacks and Asians
were going to wear my clothes, I would have never
designed them." More colorful renditions had him making his
shocking revelation on national TV and Oprah Winfrey
then throwing him off her show. (Oddly enough, the same
story has been told about Liz Claiborne since 1991, that
Oprah threw her off the show after Liz claimed she didn'
t design for Black women as "their hips are too big." That
didn't happen either. See our Liz Biz page for more
about that rumor, and the one that she gives part of the
company's profits to the Church of Satan.)
From a 1997 newspaper article debunking this tale:
In one cybermyth, Hilfiger supposedly told
style reporter Elsa Klensch of CNN that he
didn't think Asians looked good in his clothes. Then, as
the story morphed, he told Winfrey the same
thing about Blacks, at which point she threw him off the
set.
Yet representatives of both shows deny
Hilfiger ever appeared as a guest.
As quoted in a 1999 article about this rumor, "Tommy
Hilfiger has never appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show,"
said Audrey Pass, a spokeswoman for Winfrey. "Hilfiger's
never appeared on CNN Style with Elsa Klensch," said
Kathy Park of CNN.
Oprah herself did what she could to quell this slander.
On Monday, 11 January 1999, she opened her show by
adamantly denouncing the rumor, emphatically stating the
following:
So I want to just set the record straight
once and for all. The rumor claims that
clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger came on this show and made
racist remarks, and that I then kicked him
out. I just want to say that is not true because it just
never happened. Tommy Hilfiger has never
appeared on this show. READ MY LIPS, TOMMY
HILFIGER HAS NEVER APPEARED ON THIS SHOW. And all of [the]
people who claim that they saw it, they
heard it -- it never happened. I've never even met Tommy
Hilfiger.
Both Hilfiger and his company have steadfastly denied
all forms of the rumor, and it has taken many. Depending
on who you hear the whisper from, he slammed Asians,
Filipinos or Blacks, on Oprah or Ricki Lake or BET News
or Larry King Live or CNN -- as a rumor, it's a marvel of
non-specificity. According to a company statement posted
to the Internet in March 1997:
Tommy Hilfiger did not make the alleged
inappropriate racial comments. [. . .]
Hilfiger wants his clothing to be enjoyed by people of all
backgrounds and his collections are put
together with the broadest cross-section of individuals in
mind. To reinforce this, he features models
of all ethnic backgrounds in his fashion
shows and advertisements.
The company has answered the charges leveled against
Hilfiger in its corporate FAQ. It very clearly states
that not only didn't he say what's been ascribed to him, he'
s also never been on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King
Live, or CNN's Style with Elsa Klensch.
Cyberdenials or not, the rumor has legs. Earlier I
mentioned it had been around at least nine months prior
to its Internet explosion in late 1996. From a March 1995
newspaper article:
Then there's the infamous disparaging "
statement" the Parsons brothers and several
others said they had heard that Hilfiger made about Blacks,
particularly poor Blacks, wearing his
clothes.
As with all rumors, there are several
variations, and no one can say where or when
Hilfiger made the comments. One woman said a friend heard
him say it on BET News. A clerk at Burdines
said he heard it was on the Ricki Lake show.
Hilfiger being cast as a racist villain is especially
unfortunate because his history as a designer shows him
to be anything but. Adding color and movement to everyday
clothes, his designs shot into popularity fueled by
enthusiastic support from the Black community which adopted
his fashion statements as its own. When Snoop Doggy Dogg
wore a red, white, and blue Hilfiger rugby shirt on
Saturday Night Live in March 1994, the word went out --
Tommygear was cool. 1994 was also the year the National
Conference of Christians and Jews bestowed its National
Humanitarian Award on the young designer. In 1995
Hilfiger was named Menswear Designer of the Year by the
Council of Fashion Designers of America and from there
he's gone nowhere but up.
As immediately satisfying as it is to believe the old
Liz Claiborne tale has updated itself by attaching to a
newer, fresher designer, there's another likely explanation
that must also be considered. As Hilfiger's clothing
became more and more popular, it increasingly became a
target for the Pacific Basin knock-off specialists.
Hilfiger's statements that people should foreswear Asian or
Filipino bootlegs of his clothes because cheap copies
don't look good on anybody could easily have been
misheard or misunderstood so that they were later remembered
as statements to the effect that Asians or Filipinos
themselves should not wear Hilfiger designs as they would
make his clothes look bad.
Barbara "generalization GAP" Mikkelson
Last updated: 12 February 2000
The URL for this page
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Urban
Legends Reference Pages (C) 1995-2001
by Barbara and David P.
Mikkelson This
material may not be reproduced without permission
Sources:
de Vos, Gail. Tales, Rumors and Gossip.
Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 1996. ISBN 1-56308-190-3
(pp. 282-283).
Frederick, Lisa. "Urban Cool." St.
Petersburg Times. 1 March 1995 (p. D1).
Peczon, Cristina. "Eat Your Clothes, Mr. Racist
Designer." Isyu. 13 November 1996.
Pitts, Leonard. "Rumors Thrive on Electronic Grapevine
." The Buffalo News. 12 January 1999 (p. B3).
Stein, Jeannine. "When Rumors Are Clothed As Truth."
Los Angeles Times. 1 April 1997 (p. E1).
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