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Tommy Dorfman is accusing luxury fashion brand Ferragamo of “racist” and “transphobic” behavior. The “13 Reasons Why” star, who identifies as non-binary, previously partnered with Ferragamo as a photographer and curator for its February “Viva Viva” campaign, but announced on their Instagram Stories they cut ties three months ago. “The people who run this company …
Tommy Dorfman is accusing luxury fashion brand Ferragamo of “racist” and “transphobic” behavior.
The “13 Reasons Why” star, who identifies as non-binary, previously partnered with Ferragamo as a photographer and curator for its February “Viva Viva” campaign, but announced on their Instagram Stories they cut ties three months ago.
“The people who run this company are racist,” the 28-year-old actor wrote, as captured by Diet Prada. “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.”
Continued Dorfman, “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.”
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The star went on to recall an incident in which the label’s creative director Paul Andrew allegedly “asked if, in photoshop, they could make a black model white.”
“They have said heinous transphobic, body phobic, and racist things directly to me,” Dorfman said. “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.”
The actor, who has also worked with ASOS, claimed that Ferragamo threatened them with legal action if they spoke out, and that “fear” had kept them quiet until now.
“That time is over,” they concluded. “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 out of touch they are.”
On Wednesday, Ferragamo shared an Instagram post in response to the killing of George Floyd and the protests that have followed since.
Along with a photo of white and black hands held up to the sky, the label quoted Nelson Mandela: “Reaching for a more egalitarian future. Racism must end now. #BlackLivesMatter.”
A representative for Ferragamo declined to comment.
