Victoria’s Secret sparked a flurry of online outrage with the release of its “sexy little geisha” lingerie.
The outfit was deemed offensive by many, and the clothing company has decided to pull the outfit along with the rest of the Go East collection from its website. Victoria’s Secret has not released a statement about the geisha lingerie, but the retailer has changed the URL for the product to redirect people to the VS home page.
On Racialicious , Nina Jacinto wrote:
“It’s a narrative that says the culture can be completely stripped of its realness in order to fulfill our fantasies of a safe and non-threatening, mysterious East… It’s a troubling attempt to sidestep authentic representation and humanization of a culture and opt instead for racialized fetishizing against Asian women.”
Jessica Wakeman writes at Frisky.com:
“Considering the complicated history of geishas, repurposing the ‘look’ for a major corporation to sell as role-playing lingerie seems a bit tasteless.”
Some people also took issue that the model dressed in the Sexy Little Geisha (Candice Swanepoel) outfit wasn’t Asian.
Others, however, felt that the controversy was overblown. Do you think the Sexy Little Geisha outfit was offensive or playful?
One user at Styleite writes:
“You might as well [criticize] the ‘sexy French maid’ [costume] for sexualizing French women… It’s meant to be playful and sexy, not degrading.”
And since you can no longer see the outfit at Victoriassecret.com , here’s the Sexy Little Geisha outfit.
What do you think? Is this playful or offensive?