After Blackface Scandal, Prada Agrees To "Landmark" Restorative Justice Settlement With NYC

Over a year after Prada used blackface imagery in their products and displayed them prominently in their stores, the fashion brand has agreed to a "groundbreaking" restorative justice agreement with the NYC Commission on Human Rights.

Among the terms of the settlement (PDF) are a scholarship and paid internship program at Prada for racial minorities and under-represented groups; a commitment to recruit and retain underrepresented employees; the appointment of a permanent, executive-level diversity officer; and racial equity training for all employees, including head designer and the brand's founder Miuccia Prada.

The company will also be required to report on its progress to the commission.

This comes after a year-long process that was set into motion following Chinyere Ezie's complaint filed with the Commission on Human Rights in January 2019. The civil rights attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights was the first to notice Prada's "Pradamalia" merchandise at their SoHo store in December 2018. Ezie had recently visited the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, where she saw their exhibit on blackface. Writing on Facebook, Ezie said she "shaking with anger" after seeing how Prada was using the "very same racist and denigrating blackface imagery" as the museum's artifacts.

"When I asked a Prada employee whether they knew they had plastered blackface imagery throughout their store, in a moment of surprising candor I was told that a black employee had previously complained about blackface at Prada, but he didn’t work there anymore," Ezie recalled.

The commission agreed with Ezie, and said "the monkey figurine from the collection evoked images of Sambo, a caricature that, over generations, has been used to mock and dehumanize Black people. The display of such racist iconography manifests as discrimination on the basis of race, suggesting that Black people are unwelcome."

In a statement at the time, Prada said the company "abhors racist imagery," claiming that "the Pradamalia are fantasy charms composed of elements of the Prada oeuvre... They are imaginary creatures not intended to have any reference to the real world and certainly not blackface." They then withdrew "all of the characters in question from display and circulation."

A month after her complaint was filed, in February 2019, Prada announced its Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, led by Ava DuVernay. And this Wednesday, nearly a year later, a deal was signed between the fashion brand and the Commission on Human Rights.

A spokeswoman at the commission called today's agreement "groundbreaking," noting it was the first of its kind in the fashion industry in that a brand was being held to account for using racist imagery with restorative justice measures by civil government.

The NY Times reports that there's some skepticism about the commission's scope: "James Copland, the director of legal policy for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative free-market think tank, called it 'the new anti-federalism.'" He told the paper, "We’ve got a local decision-making body engaged in punitive regulation of international companies based abroad, which is something with wide national policy implications. That is why we have a federal government."

"To see a symbol of Jim Crow era oppression sold as a luxury bauble is a critical reminder that there is still work to be done," said J. Phillip Thompson, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives, in a statement. "By engaging Prada with communities who have been historically excluded from the luxury fashion industry, today’s settlement is an important step towards achieving positive social change in New York City."

As part of working on the settlement, Ezie spoke to executives at Prada. In an interview with the Times, she described a meeting with Prada's chairman, Carlo Mazzi, "who, she said, 'confirmed something I had suspected: There were no black employees working at Prada headquarters at all' during the time of the Pradamalia incident." Prada denied the remarks, but Ezie's attorney who was at the meeting confirmed Ezie's account.

On Wednesday, outside the Prada store in SoHo, Ezie told reporters that she signed off on the "historic" deal the day before. "I'm so pleased by the settlement," she said. "Everyone who experiences racism should come forward rather than suffer in silence. Our voices, our outrages, our demands for dignified treatment can and will change the world."