High street brand Zara has removed a child’s striped pyjama shirt featuring a yellow star from its stores, following a number of online complaints.
Twitter users compared the pyjama shirt to the uniform worn by Jewish prisoners in concentration camps during World War II.
The new #ZARA Sheriff T-Shirt is somewhat #Holocaust ish in its design don’t you agree? http://t.co/PY9RymfTc4 pic.twitter.com/EdQMghaXO8
— Shulman (@shulman_k) August 27, 2014
The blue and white striped shirt features a six-pointed yellow star on the front. The word “sheriff” is written on the star but this was not clear in the zoomed out images available on the brand’s website.
What were the designers thinking @ZARA ? http://t.co/SukupXR3XN pic.twitter.com/hzhcUbO0Kz
— Nathalie Rothschild (@n_rothschild) August 27, 2014
Israel journalist Dimi Reider commented on the shirt in a piece for 972mag.com, writing: “It’s a SHERIFF shirt for your three-year-old. Obviously. What else could it be? Why, what else does it remind you of?”
The item in question was available to buy in a number of countries including the UK, Israel, France, Denmark, Albania and Sweden.
The online retailer has since apologised via Twitter and the shirt is no longer for sale.
@eylanezekiel We honestly apologize, it was inspired by the sheriff’s stars from the Classic Western films and is no longer in our stores
— ZARA (@ZARA) August 27, 2014
