Fans of Ivanka Trump's clothing line were shocked when the first daughter announced
on July 24th, 2018 that her eponymous fashion brand would be shutting down for good.
Since 2011, the brand purported to provide relatively affordable professional-wear options
for women.
But for people paying close attention, the brand's downfall has been a long time coming.
From reportedly stolen shoe designs and flammable scarves, to deplorable working conditions
for employees, here's the inside scoop on why the ritzy fashion company is no more.
Down the escalator
Ivanka Trump's clothing line officially announced its closure in July 2018, but the start of
its slow decline began much earlier.
In fact, the beginning of the fashion brand's downfall may have commenced in June 2015,
when dad Donald Trump officially announced his bid for the presidency of the United States.
During a 2015 sit-down interview with Fortune, the eldest Trump daughter was asked if she
was happy her father was running for president.
Her response?
"Are you happy your father is running for President?
AH.. that's a complicated question."
Whether or not Ivanka thought her father would actually go on to win the election, there's
no question the future first daughter realized from the start the amount of scrutiny a Donald
Trump campaign would mean for her, her family, and her business.
Girl on fire
It wasn't just the optics that tore down the Ivanka Trump brand.
The products had some problems too.
In April 2016, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that the
Global Brands Group was recalling around 20,000 Ivanka Trump brand women's scarves due to
the scarves not meeting federal flammability standards, causing a burn risk.
The scarves in question were the blue and coral Beach Wave scarf, and the blue, green,
and red Brushstroke Oblong scarf so you may want to check your closet, to make sure you
don't throw kindling around your neck when it gets cold.
Footwear fiasco
The future first daughter found her company ankle-deep in hot water in June 2016 when
she was sued for allegedly copying the design of some luxury sandals.
As reported by Vanity Fair, the mega-popular Italian footwear designer Aquazzura filed
an official complaint in June 2016 accusing Ivanka and her clothing line's manufacturer,
Marc Fisher of "knocking off" the design of one of Aquazzura's best-selling, most popular
sandals.
The most noticeable difference in the sandals was the price tag Aquazzura's sandals were
listed for $785; Trump's retailed for $145.
According to the official complaint,
"Defendants have copied nearly every detail of Plaintiff's well-known and coveted Wild
Thing Shoe, from the shape and silhouette to the fringe covering the toes, to the tassel
on the heel."
Fisher's camp rebuked the claim, calling it "baseless," and Aquazzura dropped the lawsuit
in 2017.
Still, the legal drama wasn't a good look for the brand.
Business boycott
After the October 2016 release of an Access Hollywood tape featuring then-candidate Donald
Trump making some infamously unsavory remarks about women, activists Shannon Coulter and
Sue Atencio launched the "Grab Your Wallet" campaign on social media.
Aimed directly at Trump-owned businesses, the campaign targeted Ivanka Trump's clothing
line, as well as the stores that sold it, urging consumers to no longer buy from stores
who sell Trump-related products.
Among the stores to get boycotted was Nordstrom, which confirmed in February 2017 that it was
no longer carrying the Ivanka Trump line.
The brand added insult to injury by claiming the decision wasn't due to the boycott campaign,
but rather due to the brand's less-than-stellar performance in the market.
Talk about a lose-lose news cycle.
Maternity hypocrisy
Despite Ivanka's public support of paid family leave policies, she doesn't seem to practice
what she preaches.
On October 10th, 2016, the Ivanka Trump brand's former creative director Marissa Velez Kraxberger
took to Facebook to air some grievances regarding Donald Trump's newly-unveiled maternity leave
policy, which was reportedly crafted, in part, by Ivanka.
She wrote,
"When I first interviewed with Ivanka I was 2 months pregnant [...] When I asked about
maternity leave she said she would have to think about it.
[She said] that at Trump, they don't offer maternity leave and that she went back to
work just a week after having her first child."
Though Kraxberger went on to explain she was finally granted eight weeks of maternity leave
after a hard fight, her story caused many to see the first daughter in a new, hypocritical
light.
Exploiting labor
No matter how wholesome Ivanka Trump tried to make her brand look, the whole thing reeked
of worker exploitation.
Labor abuses in the brand's Chinese factories reportedly ran rampant, with people attempting
to investigate the working conditions ending up arrested for their efforts.
And according to a report by The Guardian, the working conditions in the brand's Indonesian
factories were so bad that, in the United States, they'd be illegal.
The Indonesian factory workers complained of incredibly low wages, being paid the lowest
wage allowable in Indonesia.
The compensation was so low and hours so hard, that working parents claimed they were almost
never able to see their children.
When Ivanka came out with her book Women Who Work, she probably wasn't thinking about the
people grinding away in sweatshops on behalf of her vanity brand.
Playing to lose
In her official statement about the decision to shutter her namesake fashion line, Ivanka
described the brand's closure as being part of her continuing efforts to pivot to politics.
Though existing products from the Ivanka Trump brand will continue to be sold, a spokesperson
for the company stated that no new products would be manufactured, putting the brand in
a open-ended clearance sale state..
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