ASOS has been praised over the last week or so, after a woman shared a story online about a man’s nasty messages to her about a dress she was wearing in her profile picture on Tinder.
20-year-old Thea Lauryn Chippendale got a message from an idiot she matched with on the dating app saying that a dress she had on in one of her pictures looked “awful” and a “charity shop job”.
She shared a screenshot on her Twitter account of the conversation between her and the man in question, highlighting that “men are trash” which, when they’re like this idiot, they most definitely are:
Men are trash. (Included the pic he’s on about 🙃) pic.twitter.com/3pi6NHl0Oy
— Thea Lauryn Chippendale 🌹 (@theachippendale) 28 April 2019
The tweet has since had almost 9,000 retweets and over 107,000 likes and the media picked up on the story; not just to highlight what some women have to put up with on Tinder, but also because of ASOS’s brilliant response.
The online fashion retailer decided to contact Thea to see if she’d be happy for it to use the image of her wearing the dress on the actual page for that item on the website, to advertise it in the product’s gallery, which she was more than happy to let happen.
This is an amazing example of how a brand can turn a negative situation for one of their customers into a positive for both the person and their company; and ASOS is being praised massively for its response and quick thinking.
The story went viral and I can imagine the bloke who slated Thea’s dress is now feeling a bit daft.
Bad PR
Online clothing retailer Fashion Nova has received a string of bad press in recent weeks, culminating with a customer sharing a photo of a bikini label on Twitter that highlighted how a material used in the garment could cause cancer.
A Californian woman named Azia bought a neon-green bikini from Fashion Nova and noticed that the label inside read: “This product can expose you to Di(2-ethykhexyl) phthalate, lead and cadmium, which are known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects and other reproductive harm.”
She shared the photo of the bikini and label, highlighting her find:
Did y’all know this tag is in Fashion Nova swimsuits ? pic.twitter.com/pUK5S2BAMq
— azia 💓 (@aziaani_) 29 April 2019
The reason Fashion Nova has to include this label is due to an old Californian law from the 1980s which is now known as Prop 65. It requires any businesses of a certain size with ties to California (in terms of production, premises, etc) to provide a warning on their products if they contain chemicals that have been known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Whilst some say it’s a good thing to have these warnings in place, for full transparency (and because the risk is apparently low), the stronger argument is that fashion retailers (and brands in other sectors, for that matter) should not be using these chemicals in their items anymore.
The tweet has since had more than 7,000 retweets and 11,000 likes, with 220 comments and the story has been picked up by media outlets such as the Metro, USA Today, Daily Mail and many others.
Fashion Nova has also been slammed recently for other things, such as a model posing with a bear cub stood on its hind legs with its paws in her hands and some dodgy, ultra-revealing clothing items; one of which was described as “floss” for your nether regions.
Written by Shannon Peerless, 10 Yetis @ShazzaYeti on Twitter. Seen any good or bad PR lately? You know what to do @10Yetis on Twitter or andy@10Yetis.co.uk on email
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