Luxury brand Louis Vuitton came under fire over one of its latest menswear releases. The brand dropped an homage to Jamaica with a knit sweater titled the “Jamaican Stripe Sweater.” The simply designed pullover featured three horizontal stripes in green, yellow and red and its signature LV logo with a hefty price tag of $1,340. But the country’s flag is black, green and yellow, as pointed out by Twitter user @pam_boy.
“I cannot stress enough how important it is to implement diversity as a value and not a symbol within fashion companies,” the tweet read.
People on Twitter reacted swiftly to the obtuse misstep.
One Twitter user called out Louis Vuitton’s attempt to correct the faux pas.
“So @LouisVuitton attempted to fix it without properly researching AGAIN,” user @DanniMaig wrote. “These colors do not represent the heritage of the island as much of the heritage of Rastafarianism and the Rastafari movement that took place in Jamaica in the 1930s.”
According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, Rastafarianism is a political and religious movement that began in Jamaica during the 1930s. The colors represented in Louis Vuitton’s sweater could represent the movement. But that assumption would be stereotypical for people from the Caribbean island nation that won its independence from Great Britain in 1962.
Jamaica’s national flag was designed and agreed upon by a legislative body that believed that its new flag should be black, yellow and green.
“These stood for the difficulties faced by the nation (black), its natural wealth and the beauty of its sunlight (yellow), and agriculture and hope (green),” the site explained.
Virgil Abloh, the brand’s Black creative director, is a Jamaican culture enthusiast. It’s not been confirmed if Abloh took part in the homage.
Last August, the creative force behind Louis Vuitton did collaborate with Jamaican-born skater Lucien Clarke to design the brand’s first pro-skater sneaker.
Louis Vuitton has not released a statement regarding the sweater.