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Zara Pulls Yellow Star Shirt After Online Outrage

Blue and white-striped pajama shirt supposedly inspired by Western movies

by
Stephanie Butnick
August 27, 2014
Zara's questionable kids offering, which the company soon pulled from its website. (Nathalie Rothschild/Twitter)
Zara's questionable kids offering, which the company soon pulled from its website. (Nathalie Rothschild/Twitter)

Earlier this morning, Tablet contributor Nathalie Rothschild tweeted, “What were the designers thinking @ZARA ?” linking to an image of a children’s shirt sold by the clothing company. The shirt in question had blue and white stripes and a yellow star on the left—and looked a lot more like something you’d see in a concentration camp than on the runway.

A predictable online kerfuffle ensued, and Zara quickly pulled the shirt, writing back to Rothschild, “We honestly apologize, it was inspired by the sheriff’s stars from the Classic Western films and is no longer in our stores.”

What this means is that no one at Zara, from the design team to the production staff, at any point thought this striped shirt with a yellow star on it looked a little familiar. And not in the, ‘we probably ripped off someone else’s design‘ way, but in the ‘wasn’t there a movie a few years about about a little boy in a striped pajama shirt just like this one?’ way.

I guess the real question is whether it comes with pajama pants.

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.