This past weekend, fashion designer Kenneth Cole took 20 seconds out of his day to promote his new spring line via Twitter. Unfortunately for him, that small decision will cause him grief for much longer than 20 seconds.
In an effort to be relevant to his public, the designer referred to recent unrest in Egypt in a lighthearted manner stating that the uproar in Cairo is due to the fact that his new spring line is now available. While I’m sure Cole meant no harm by his statement, it seems to me that someone with such a large following and knowledge of how fast word spreads on the Internet should think through a decision like the one he made. Even if he didn’t think it would be deemed offensive on such a large scale, did he really think it was worth it to use such a controversial and serious issue as a marketing tool? The potential that he could be judged negatively based on the statement definitely outweighs any benefits of people finding it funny.
Although Cole did apologize on his Twitter several hours later, it was too late and Internet users everywhere were outraged. Reputable news outlets such as CNN and The Times have already covered the story and shown that overall the tweet was an unwise decision on his part. He is undoubtedly sincere in his apology and in the last several days has made definite efforts to clear up his image, however, this will not be going away anytime soon due to several people who have taken advantage of this event as a reason to make a mockery of the designer. Just the day after the infamous tweet, a large decal of the statement was placed on the front window of his SOMA location for all passersby to see, evidence that he will be reaping the consequences of this for a while.
Overall, he went too far and it was too close to the timing of the actual events do so. A quick decision, a simple action, and a lot of regret. Cole technically removed the post from his Twitter but let this be a lesson to us all that once you tweet, you can’t go back.
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