Claim: A video shows American citizens protesting against Zara’s new campaign by throwing clothes outside the company’s outlet.
Fact: The claim is misleading because the original video Vestiaire Collective created the video for their campaign “Fast Fashion Ban” urging consumers to think before buying from brands and promoting sustainable fashion practices. It was launched a month before Zara’s new campaign.
On 15 December 2023, Bol News published a since-deleted reel (archive) on Instagram with an Urdu caption,
غزہ جنگ کے بارے میں توہین آمیز اشتہار دینے کے بعد امریکی عوام نے “زارا” برانڈ کے تمام کپڑے کمپنی کے سامنے پھینک دیے
Translated [The American citizens threw all the clothes of the brand ‘ZARA’ in front of the company’s outlet after it made an insulting ad about the war in Gaza.]
On 7 December 2023, the fast-fashion retailer Zara launched a campaign that sparked criticism around the world. People called it insensitive, saying the imagery is reminiscent of scenes from the Israel-Hamas War and asked for a boycott. Later, Zara removed the ad from the website and posted on Instagram that the campaign was designed in July and shot in September, long before the 7 October attack and the Israel-Hamas war.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check observed the video closely and noticed that the clothes could be seen falling from the top and not thrown by people. This shows that the video was created using artificial intelligence. The text, “Vestiaire Collective”, is visible on an electronic billboard in the background of the video.
Screengrab of video showing the name of “Vestiarie Collective”
To investigate this, Soch Fact Check searched for Vestiaire Collective on Google and found an Instagram account with the same name. According to the bio of the page, it promotes pre-loved clothes and sustainable fashion practices.
The same video as that of the viral post was posted by Vestiaire Collective on 16 November 2023. The caption of the video reads that it is part of the Fast Fashion Ban campaign, which was launched a month before Zara’s new ad campaign. The vision of the Fast Fashion Ban was to encourage consumers to be more thoughtful about their purchases and refrain from buying brands like Zara, Uniqlo and Mango.
Thus, it is clear that the viral video is not related to the boycott call after Zara’s recent campaign.
Virality
The viral video was shared here, here, here, and here on Facebook.
On X (formerly Twitter), the video was posted by a page RTE Urdu, where it received 218.6k views, 10k likes, and 6.3k reposts. The archived version of the video can be seen here and here.
Conclusion: The video showing piles of clothes thrown outside Zara’s outlet is unrelated to the recent calls for a boycott of the brand following their latest campaign. The video is a month old and was launched by a pre-loved clothing retail company as a part of their campaign called Fast Fashion Ban.
Background image in cover photo: ZARA
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