Fashionista has the details on what happens when a cosmetics company’s seeming cultural ignorance ends up railroading its new product ventures (this after one mega retailer’s corporate hernia this summer after it donated money to antigay interests, as we recently wrote about).
M·A·C , in its fall 2010 makeup collaboration with pride-of-Pasadena Rodarte, decided to pull the plug on a mint frost polish named Factory and a pink varietal dubbed Juarez—you know, the place where hundreds (if not thousands) of women, often working in maquiladoras, have disappeared over the past decade, many later to be found brutally murdered.
“Why would M·A·C and Rodarte — which are both hip, with-it brands — name their nail polishes so tastelessly?” asked blogger Jessica Wakeman of Frisky. Even if they were donating the proceeds to justice for Juarez victims’ families (and I haven’t read that they are), it’s a weird way to raise awareness about violence against women. What’s next, a lipstick called Bergen-Belsen?”
M·A·C responded by promising to donate some proceeds of the collection to women’s anti-violence advocacy groups in Mexico; then it offered an apology; then it announced that the collection is no more.
In a statement, M·A·C says the decision will not impact its previously-stated commitments to supporting advocacy work in the border town.
M·A·C ’s statement:
