Prada has tapped "Selma" director Ava DuVernay and artist Theaster Gates to advise the Italian fashion house on diversity issues after the company released a holiday collection featuring blackface imagery.
In December, Prada faced backlash over its Pradamalia line, which included monkey-like figurines with black faces and large red lips. When civil rights attorney Chinyere Ezie spotted the products at a Prada store in Manhattan, she posted on Facebook that she was struck by how the items resembled blackface. The figurines left her "shaking with anger," she wrote at the time.
After that post gained traction, Prada pulled the products and issued a statement, saying "we abhor all forms of racism and racist imagery."