There’s social commentary, and then there’s being tone deaf.
When introducing a new tote bag, Romwe was the latter.
The company’s new tote bag says, in plain black text, “This bag contains a gun, a bomb, a very large knife, and loads of drugs.” Yikes.
We can understand what they were going for here: Shining a light on the current state of security in the U.S. But, it seems to have fallen far short of that goal, instead just making light of terrorism and drug trade.
This really couldn’t have come at a worse time, either. A 2015 New York Times poll suggested that Americans are more fearful of terrorism against the U.S. than they were the week after Sept. 11, 2001.
Teen Vogue left a particularly scathing review of the bag:
Nearly everyone in the country—let alone the world—is affected in one way or another by some form of violence, especially in the categories listed on this tote bag. Shoppers might have personal experience with a threat or event, others may life in cities that hold with them the day-to-day possibility of violence in some form or another, others still have made it their life’s work to fight the threats at hand. In short, violence and terrorism are not something to make light of—especially on a tote bag slogan.
The bag is still for sale on Romwe’s site, but is marked down from $22.99 to only $9.99.
