'Trail of Tiers' Trelise Cooper dress slammed as 'height of total insensitivity'
stuff.co.nz/life-style/fashion/123657907/trai...
stuff.co.nzPosted Dec 11, 2020, 12:54 AM UTC
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stuff.co.nzTrail of tiers doesn’t make sense as a stand-alone. They knew it was a play on the phrase trail of tears but didn’t bother to look up what that meant. So many people had to have been amazingly ignorant for that to be approved without questions. And to respond to Stuff with that “stop picking on me” line was so tone deaf.
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Don't underestimate how uninformed some people are.
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"they knew" - sure they did because that's such a common thing known in this country.
Typical keyboard warriors though, jump all over and assume the worst.
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Typical keyboard warriors though, jump all over and assume the worst.
And not even a hint of irony.
Good stuff
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You wouldn't use the phrase "trail of tiers" unless you were playing off the homophone "tears/tiers". Divorced from its history "trail of tears" is a pretty cool and dramatic phrase, so I can see why they did that. So "they knew", as in they knew it was a play on the phrase trail of tears.
Whether they knew the significance of "trail of tears" is another thing.
It's not that well known history and we're pretty bad at teaching history in general, so I don't think it's that far fetched that they didn't, and I don't necessarily blame them. But the response to Stuff was pretty dumb and just invites criticism. Literally just be like "woops we didn't know, we've taken it off shelves and renamed it" instead of getting all whiny about everyone being mean to you, it's not hard.
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I worked with her many years ago, I never considered her to be the sharpest pencil in the pack tbh
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But the response to Stuff was pretty dumb and just invites criticism.
I thought it was awesome. Too often shithole media outlets like that feel they have some power over people in that they need to reply or be painted in bad light.
For someone to actually stand up and speak the truth of what stuff is I think is great.
Look at all the fools here who repeatedly attack stuff now defend it. funny stuff.
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Look at all the fools here who repeatedly attack stuff now defend it. funny stuff.
I guess people here aren't as dogmatic as you are? People attack Stuff when Stuff are dumb, in this case they're not being dumb, the people calling out the trail of tiers have a legitimate grievance and publishing that is worthwhile.
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Most kiwis will be aware of the genocides committed by the US government & settlers against native American peoples. But if not: https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears TLDR: trail of tears was the forced removal of native peoples from the southern states and their marching west to reservations etc. Many died and were killed on the trail.
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They may but that particular terminology? No they won't.
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Ad hominems aren't a substitute for arguing an actual point.
u/PavementFuck is right, it's really obviously a pun on "Trail of Tears" because it doesn't make sense otherwise as a phrase, and using Hanlon's Razor, the likeliest scenario is that Cooper/her team didn't know, but couldn't be bothered checking what the phrase they were referencing actually meant.
So it's far from the "height of insanity", more like ordinary ignorance compounded with stupid decisions.
Whether they should know it is up for debate (I'd think it's pretty common general knowledge, obviously your mileage varies), but either way naming a dress after it without checking is a dumb thing to do.
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You're just a fuckin moron.
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I mean...even if we accept that she didn’t know the meaning of the name (which is a stretch in my opinion) it’s pretty normal business practice to type the name of your new product into Google to make sure:
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there’s nothing similarly named (really often people think they’ve come up with something original, turns out they’d vaguely seen something similar)
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you haven’t accidentally named your product something with another meaning.
In this case at minimum they’ve fucked up that and clearly done both.
But I’m still not exactly convinced this is a mistake.
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I mean...even if we accept that she didn’t know the meaning of the name
Just no.
Even if this name bubbled up subconsciously, the moment it was put before a room full of people it would have been immediately flagged by someone for what it really was and then carried on, on purpose.
The fashion world is highly connected to, not disconnected from, consciousness of these issues.
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^^^ This. No way in this day and age does any halfway competent businessperson fail to check names and phrases they're wanting to use in the public domain. Especially if you're an international brand. It's basic copyright and trademark checks, even if you don't give a shit about unintentional or offensive alternative meanings.
A) Cooper and her team are that dumb and didn't check, B) her team isn't that dumb and told her but she didn't care, or C) they were deliberately going for the play on words hoping nobody picked up on the forced relocation/death aspect and "picked on her" for it.
I don't think I've ever read much good about Cooper, but this takes the cake.
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D) she and her team picked it so she'd get sympathy from people and thus more customers.
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That's more like A1 since they'd have to be next level stupid to think that self-inflicted controversy like this would garner sympathy. And why would she need it, when a burglary (series of them?) is a genuinely bad event that would prompt a sympathetic response.
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This is the same dumb cunt that used Native American war headdresses as part of her fashion show some years back, so it’s not the first time she’s gone down this road. For which she apologised sincerely and “didn’t mean to cause offence!” Yet she turns right around and does it again.
The Trail of Tears is one of the most horrific and tragic chapters in US history and to make pun about it is in extremely poor taste.
Then when Prof. Kidman called her out on Twitter for it, Cooper’s initial reaction was that the media was picking on her in the name of sensational journalism. A few hours later she issues an apology and pulled the dress, which I figure someone in her firm actually Googled wtf the problem was. So is she willfully that ignorant or just doesn’t give a fuck until someone calls her out?
I do not care about fashion (is she really that fucking special?) but I do not want this type of person to represent Kiwis in an international forum of any type.
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What the fuck?
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Yeah dude they totally just came up with 'Trail of Tiers'. What a fucking idiot.
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“I couldn’t believe what I was actually seeing.” Kidman took to Twitter to express her thoughts.
Did she bother to contact them first to see if they were aware of it or if they would do anything about it ? Doesn't look like it - straight to social media to try and get some fame whore recognition.
Those questions were put to Cooper, but she declined to comment on the record about the naming of the dress.
“Stuff is only after a clickbait headline. You’re so terrible to me,” she said. “It is being sensationalist clickbait.”
She's not wrong.
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Weird that you have so many posts going after people being "racist scum" yet you call the lady who highlighted this racism as going for "fame whore recognition."
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"but she declined to comment on the record about the naming of the dress. "
Thats just code for "I fucked up"
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Five minutes on Google would have sufficed but instead you opted for the "I'm an ignorant fuckwit" option.
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Second time?
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Have you considered not being perpetually outraged then?
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Naming your product after a genocide, has that ever gone well?
Are you implying they knowingly did so?
Eh it's a pretty fucking big coincidence if it was unwitting.
How many people do you really think from NZ would have ever heard that term? I know I haven't but if anything at least she will get some attention to the atrocious actions of the past by the US (which hasn't gotten any better for Native Americans these days either).
Year 9/10 social studies/history covers it.
Are you suggesting they were unaware of the event and happened to pick that name by chance?
That seems unlikely but giving them the benefit of the doubt they should have no issue with removing the product and issuing an apology. It would still make headlines because it is a monumental screw up.
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I don’t think it matters if it was intentional or not
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