Gucci Blackface Balaclava Controversy — Model wearing black Gucci balaclava sweater with red-lipped mouth opening

Gucci Blackface Balaclava Controversy

2019eventclassic

Published August 25, 2026

The Gucci Blackface Balaclava Controversy was the February 2019 backlash against an $890 black wool balaclava sweater from Gucci's Fall Winter 2018-2019 collection whose red-lipped mouth opening looked like blackface makeup. The luxury brand pulled the item and apologized after Twitter outrage, with the story landing alongside the Ralph Northam blackface scandal in Virginia.

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Overview

The Gucci Blackface Balaclava Controversy is the February 2019 uproar over a black wool balaclava sweater sold by Gucci for $890, whose roll-up collar covered the lower face and framed the mouth in a wide red lip outline that many viewers read as blackface1. The piece was part of Gucci's Fall Winter 2018-2019 line and had been on sale for months before it went viral2.

What made the design so flammable was the specific combination of solid black knit stretched over the face plus the exaggerated red mouth, a pairing that looked like the makeup white performers historically used to caricature Black people1. The backlash pushed Gucci to pull the sweater from its online and physical stores and to promise more internal diversity work2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Gucci runway (source) / Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
Gucci
Date
2019

The balaclava debuted as part of Gucci's Fall Winter 2018-2019 runway show in February 20183. A handful of Twitter users flagged the blackface resemblance over the following year, but those posts did not travel far at the time3.

The controversy went mainstream on February 6th, 2019, driven in large part by a tweet from @fuckrashida that racked up more than 7,600 retweets and 16,000 likes and pushed the image into wider Twitter feeds3.

How It Spread

Once the @fuckrashida tweet took off, other users piled on with side-by-side comparisons between the sweater and historical blackface imagery, including posts from @blubuttafly16 and @chrxstianh__3. A tweet from a user identified as King James asking "What's going on here @Gucci this is blatant Disrespect #Blackface" went up shortly before the brand's apology2.

Gucci issued a statement late on February 6th saying it "deeply apologizes for the offense caused by the wool balaclava jumper" and confirmed the item was removed from its online store and all physical stores, calling the moment a "powerful learning moment"2. The story was picked up by NPR2, Vox1 and The New York Times4, and Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary pointed out that the blowup landed during Black History Month2.

Days later, Gucci parent company Kering's CEO François-Henri Pinault told the Wall Street Journal that the group had product-review teams focused on the Asian market but nothing equivalent for African American consumers, admitting "that's a mistake"1. Coverage tied the sweater story to the concurrent scandal around Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, whose medical school yearbook page showed a person in blackface next to another in a Ku Klux Klan robe2.

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