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Tommy Dorfman Calls Out Fashion Brand Ferragamo: 'The People Who Run This Company Are Racist'

Tommy Dorfman Calls Out Fashion Brand Ferragamo: 'The People Who Run This Company Are Racist'

Tommy Dorfman is calling out the fashion brand Ferragamo after the company posted in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Reaching for a more egalitarian future. Racism must end now,” the company said in a post on Wednesday (June 3).

Tommy was the photographer and curator of the brand’s Viva Viva campaign, which was released back in February. In a post on his Instagram Stories, Tommy opened up about his experience working on the shoot.

“It is imperative to call out companies that you know to be racist during this time. I did not do my part in doing this months ago when they showed their true selves. I regret ever associating myself with the brand,” Tommy wrote. “I thought I could change them through discourse, but all I got were meaningless apologies. I cut ties with them months ago when it became clear that they discriminated against talent I cast in a campaign AGAIN after promising not to.”

“The people who run this company are racist,” he continued. “They are transphobic. They are not body-positive. They will say ‘but we have cast black people and trans people’ which is true, but only by force of hand. And those numbers remain small. And they fail to treat them equally. Only because of rage and threats to pull out of shooting a campaign for them did they succumb.”

Click inside to read the rest of Tommy Dorfman’s open letter…

“I heard direct from their creative director that they asked if, in photoshop, they could make a black model white,” he added. “They have said heinous transphobic, body phobic, and racist things directly to me. I called them out every time and they promised to change. They said they ‘learned.’ They have very clearly not learned, nor have they changed. They have proved, as a company, over and over again to only be interested in meaningless apologies with zero followthrough. Discourse is sometimes just not enough.”

“They threaten me with legal if I were to speak up, so because of that fear, I didn’t say anything. F–k that,” Tommy continued. “That time is over. I am sorry that I did not speak sooner on this matter. I feel extreme shame for not calling these people out until now. This post is only a small sign of how our of touch they are.”

“We have to, as white people, take a look and where and when we have been complacent and part of racism, homophobia, and transphobia both directly and indirectly and call it out. Call ourselves out,” he concluded. “People have the right to know where to spend their money and where not to.”

The story was first pointed out on Instagram by @diet_prada.

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Photos: Getty
Posted to: Black Lives Matter, Tommy Dorfman