Zara has withdrawn a children’s Halloween costume from sale after its design sparked widespread criticism on social media because of its resemblance to uniforms worn by prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.
The Spanish fashion retailer removed the outfit from its website last Wednesday following the online backlash, which was also reported by several newspapers, including Switzerland’s Tages-Anzeiger and Israel’s Times of Israel. The costume had been priced at €39.90.
The outfit consisted of a worn-looking jacket with vertical blue and grey stripes, decorative stitching and white patches. Critics said the design evoked the clothing worn by prisoners in Nazi camps, while the stitching was compared to barbed wire.
The red flower attached to the lapel also drew attention because of its position. Some users compared it to the coloured badges used by the Nazis to classify prisoners, with red identifying political prisoners and yellow marking Jewish prisoners.
Zara’s original product description presented the outfit simply as a children’s costume featuring vertical stripes, decorative stitching, a flower on the lapel and a distressed finish. It included a cardigan and shorts.
The similarities quickly prompted comparisons with an earlier controversy involving the Spanish retailer.
Israeli journalist Dov Gil-Har was among the first to highlight the latest design on X, recalling that Zara faced criticism in 2014 after selling a children’s shirt featuring horizontal white and blue stripes and a six-pointed yellow star. The design was widely seen as resembling the yellow Star of David that Jewish prisoners were forced to wear under Nazi rule.
There has been speculation over what inspired the latest costume. According to the Times of Israel, some social media users suggested that it may have been intended to evoke the striped outfit worn by Michael Keaton’s character in the 1988 horror comedy Beetlejuice and its 2024 sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Others compared it with the costume worn by the groom in Tim Burton’s 2005 animated film Corpse Bride.
Whatever the intended reference, the design prompted a very different reaction from the one the retailer appears to have anticipated, leading Zara to remove the costume from sale amid the controversy.
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