Soho Prada Store Slammed For 'Blackface' Display

SOHO, NY — Luxury clothier Prada has pulled a controversial product line amid outrage that the dark-wood figurines with exaggerated red lips displayed in the brand's Soho storefront are "racist and denigrating blackface imagery."

The line of collectibles, known as Pradamalia, includes a $500 monkey keychain named Otto and is featured prominently on the luxury Italian brand's website.

Civil right attorney Chinyere Ezie with the Center for Constitutional Rights spotted the figurines as she passed the brand's 575 Broadway boutique in Soho and slammed the products as "bewildering examples of their Sambo like imagery" on social media.

“Today after returning to NYC after a very emotional visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture including an exhibit on blackface, I walked past Prada’s Soho storefront only to be confronted with the very same racist and denigrating #blackface imagery," Ezie wrote in an emotionally charged Facebook post.

The exaggerated red lips, bulging eyes and ink black skin are features often found in racist cartoons and depictions of African Americans throughout U.S. history.

A spokesperson for Prada said the company "will withdraw all of the characters in question from display and circulation" and said the keychains were never intended to be racist.

"Prada Group abhors racist imagery," the brand said. "The Pradamalia are fantasy charms composed of elements of the Prada oeuvre. They are imaginary creatures not intended to have any reference to the real world and certainly not blackface. We abhor all forms of racism and racist imagery."

Otto, the dark-wood monkey figurine with large, red lips is part of the Pradamalia product line.

When this reporter visited the Soho Prada location Friday morning, workers had already removed the products from the store.

A wave of backlash on social media called for a boycott of Prada and questioned how the company could have even green-lighted such a blatantly racist product to begin with, said outraged social media posters.

"So let me get this straight..... Prada store in New York in Soho to be exact has blackface as the new face of their campaign? BLACKFACE?!" wrote Jodine Dorce, who works in marketing and technology, on Instagram.

"Someone in their creative department thought that was okay and then it was approved by their marketing department? This was approved? They thought this was going to attract customers? Wow! Just wow!"

Councilman Jumanne Williams joined the chorus of outage Friday afternoon and told reporters outside of the Broadway store that Prada must issue an apology and donate the cash made off of Otto to advocacy groups fighting racism.

“They might as well have been selling nooses and maybe selling Swastikas," said Williams. "I’m stunned at what I saw."

Photo courtesy of flair fashion/Youtube