Once again, people in the fashion industry are taking the not-so-fashionable (read: really racist) route, with A.P.C. founder Jean Touitou deciding that it would be OK to use the n-word throughout the presentation for his Fall 2015 men’s collection, Style.com reports.
According to the news site, on Sunday the French designer used the slur throughout the presentation he gave in Paris as models stood around him. At one point he held up a sign reading, “Last Ni##@$ in Paris.”
“I call this one look Last N****s in Paris. Why? Because it’s the sweet spot when the hood—the ’hood—meets Bertolucci’s movie Last Tango in Paris. So that’s ‘N****s in Paris’ and Last N****s in Paris,” Style.com reported the designer saying. “The Timberland here is a very strong ghetto signifier. In the ghetto, it is all the Timberlands, all the big chain. Not at the same time—never; it’s bad taste. So we designed Timberlands with Timberland … ”
Style later contacted the designer for a further explanation. Touitou replied via email that Kanye West endorsed his idea.
"I made looks which are a cross-over of those two references: the Timberland shoes and the sweat pants are iconic of hip-hop, and the camel hair color coat, worn with nothing under it, is iconic of that precise movie,” Touitou wrote. “I am friends with Kanye [West, who recorded ‘N—gas in Paris’ with Jay Z], and he and I presented a joint collection at the same place, one year ago, and that this thing is only a homage to our friendship. As a matter of fact, when I came up with this idea, I wrote to him, with the picture of the look and the name I was giving to it, and he wrote back immediately saying something like, ’I love this vibe.’"
Read more at Style.com.