Burberry cancels invitations of Korean celebs to London show over coronavirus concerns

[My Everything]

SEOUL, Feb. 18 (Yonhap) -- British luxury brand Burberry has cancelled its invitations of South Korean celebrities and branch workers to its show at London Fashion Week due to coronavirus concerns, the company said Tuesday.

Actor Yoo Ah-in and actress Gong Hyo-jin, as well as employees of Burberry Korea, were scheduled to attend the event this week, but the company later decided to disinvite them as part of "preventive" measures related to the COVID-19 outbreak, according to Burberry officials. 

"As preventive measures, Burberry cancelled its invitations to Burberry workers in Asia. In line with that, Burberry decided to take the same step for our guests to ensure their safety," the fashion house said in a release. The decision was made with prior discussions with the guests, it noted.

Other celebrities and employees in other parts of Asia, including China, Japan and Hong Kong, also reportedly did not attend the show upon Burberry's invitation withdrawal.

London Fashion Week 2020 was held from Feb. 14-18, with the Burberry showcase taking place on Monday.

As of Tuesday, South Korea has 31 confirmed cases of the novel virus. In China, more than 1,860 people have died and around 72,500 have been confirmed infected. Hong Kong and Japan each reported 61 and 77 confirmed cases.

https://m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200218008900325

[godblessdelulu]

eh....?

[blossoms]

wtf isnt that like ridiculously racist

[godblessdelulu]

4 minutes ago, blossoms said:

wtf isnt that like ridiculously racist

yup, that's the whole point, fashion industry never fails to disappoint everyone.

[Drama Drama Drama]

Racist but asiaphobic towards coronavirus is so messy in Europe and US

[Honey dew]

Burberry cancelled 

[Thatoneuser]

Why do you do this Burberry, you're one of my favorite fashion houses

[lighterxx]

Wow thats as racist as the thing KLM did to Korean passengers i hope they will get backlash like them too 

[Haze]

a bunch of incidents like these are coming out, recently an airline didn't let korean passengers use the restroom on the plane just because they were asian. Fucking idiots. 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Haze

[Siobhan Halo]

Burberry back to chasing those chav dollars.

[Drama Drama Drama]

37 minutes ago, Honey dew said:

Burberry cancelled 

I remember when Burberry cried how harder was Asian market until they hired Kris Wu and 2 of Nine Percent as ambassadors. Waiting for China revenge pulling a Dolce and Gabbana 2.0

[A Hamster Named Loneliness]

wtf, that's racist as fuck. 

[gam3 bo1]

did they not think to do idk.... health checks?? like any rational person/company would do????? how dumb can u get omg

[Forgottenly]

The coverage on this outbreak has been racist from the very beginning and honestly fuck burberry for following it.

[fanofkpop]

WHAT ? does this also mean there won't be any asian modelling walking the show ? 

[MAKI]

They learned nothing from the Dolce & Gabbana case

[ribbonribbon]

I honestly wonder how the " prior discussions with the guests" went.

Considering that (1) UK does not really even ban flights from China (2) countries that ban flight from China don't even ban flights from Korea, etc, withdrawing an invitation is based on race utterly racist.

How about guests coming from Asia? Models? Western who transit through Asia?

[MicrowavedTeaforYourSoul]

Just a few months back Vogue Korea put Ricardo Tisci on their cover

[Raosei]

How utterly racist. Preventive? The logic is not there. 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Raosei

[Jikrytae]

12 hours ago, blossoms said:

wtf isnt that like ridiculously racist

Honestly? No. It's obvious everyone here wants to senselessly jump on the "That's racist!" bandwagon, but most people's concerns about the virus don't revolve around race, they're about location. The location of the virus's epicenter, to be more specific. It's a coincidence (geography notwithstanding) that all of the most affected countries happen to be of the same race. If the virus had broken out in North America instead, where someone could be of any race, you would see foreign countries taking similar preventative measures against people from that continent as well.

Could this lead to an unjustified fear of Asians? Definitely, but it doesn't mean those people hate Asians, or that these guests were uninvited because of their race. And for the record, yes, they should have asked other guests if they had been in the region recently, so they could also revoke their invites. It's only fair. But the guests actually from those countries were simply the most obvious ones to take these measures with.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Jikrytae

[Drama Drama Drama]

Burberry was the one brand who did this?

Because today IU was to Gucci Fashion Show in Milan so... what's up Burberry?

[blossoms]

36 minutes ago, Jikrytae said:

Honestly? No. It's obvious everyone here wants to senselessly jump on the "That's racist!" bandwagon, but most people's concerns about the virus don't revolve around race, they're about location. The location of the virus's epicenter, to be more specific. It's a coincidence (geography notwithstanding) that all of the most affected countries happen to be of the same race. If the virus had broken out in North America instead, where someone could be of any race, you would see foreign countries taking similar preventative measures against people from that continent as well.

Could this lead to an unjustified fear of Asians? Definitely, but it doesn't mean those people hate Asians, or that these guests were uninvited because of their race. And for the record, yes, they should have asked other guests if they had been in the region recently, so they could also revoke their invites. It's only fair. But the guests actually from those countries were simply the most obvious ones to take these measures with.

It's racist. Australia currently has 15 cases, as does the US. Germany has 16, France has 12 and the UK itself currently has 9 cases. And of these 9 cases, 7 of them are white British nationals. Yet there are no 'preventative measures' in place towards any of these countries... I wonder why. 

Anyone could have the virus depending on where they've been and who they have been in contact with. To dis-invite ALL Asian celebrities and workers from your show is ridiculous looking at the figures. The Phillipines has just 3 cases, Cambodia just 1 and out of Korea's 31 cases,  13 of them had travel history to Wuhan. This leaves 18 cases of person-to-person spread within Korea itself (and the majority of these cases are family members of those who went to Wuhan) This number isn't much higher than the German cases.

Other Korean celebrities have been spotted at many other fashion events this week, Burberry is the only brand who have disallowed ALL of their Asian workers and supporters to attend and as a British person, it's embarrassing and anger-inducing.  

Edited February 19, 2020 by blossoms

[adda]

13 hours ago, blossoms said:

wtf isnt that like ridiculously racist

no, its stupid.

some k-groups cancelled their concerts in Europe because of coronavirus ( but didn't cancel their concerts in Japan). Do you think they are "racists" or just a stupid PR move to hide something else? ( like they didn't sell tickets etc.) 

 

what Burberry did  is plain stupid. 

There is a consistent number of people infected in China, but when we think that the number represent 0,005% of China population,  we realize that the virus is kept under control there. They had to take radical measures, but they succeeded to keep the virus under control.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by adda

[Jikrytae]

5 minutes ago, blossoms said:

It's racist. Australia currently has 15 cases, as does the US. Germany has 16, France has 12 and the UK itself currently has 9 cases. And of these 9 cases, 7 of them are white British nationals. Yet there are no 'preventative measures' in place towards any of these countries... I wonder why. 

Anyone could have the virus depending on where they've been and who they have been in contact with. To dis-invite ALL Asian celebrities and workers from your show is ridiculous looking at the figures. The Phillipines has just 3 cases, Cambodia just 1 and out of Korea's 31 cases,  13 of them had travel history to Wuhan. This leaves 18 cases of person-to-person spread within Korea itself (and the majority of these cases are family members of those who went to Wuhan) This number isn't much higher than the German cases.

Other Korean celebrities have been spotted at many other fashion events this week, Burberry is the only one's who have disallowed their Asian workers and supporters to attend and as a British person, it's embarrassing and anger-inducing.  

I don't think we can assume they have racist intentions, unless you have evidence to suggest otherwise, and the figures you gave for other countries are absolutely miniscule compared to the shitshow going on in China right now. I mean the US has a population of over 300 million. 15 cases is nothing. Those other countries are also taking measures to keep the virus under control, unlike China, where people are being denied a diagnosis & treatment just so the government can make their statistics look better. Like it or not, it makes perfect sense to not invite the Chinese and surrounding countries where current carriers are most likely to travel & infect others. The number of Korean cases that actually came from China only proves this point.

[StepOnMeJas]

It is racist. Very racist. I don't see how anyone can think otherwise