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Savage x Fenty shines bright like a diamond
Savage x Fenty is a highly popularized underwear brand making strides by focusing on inclusivity.
It is owned by a woman of color, Rihanna, and including all types of people in their sizing and marketing. Rihanna launched Savage x Fenty in May 2018. In the year prior, Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty which had foundation in forty unique shades to include all skin colors.
In weeks prior, Savage x Fenty hosted their second fashion show, which streamed on Amazon Prime. There were musical performances from Roddy Rich, Miguel, Rosalia, Bad Bunny, Ella Mai, and more. Other celebrities such as Bella Hadid, Normani, Paris Hilton, Big Sean, and numerous others modeled.
You Da One Rihanna
Savage x Fenty’s runway show featured a plus-sized man, his stretch marks and all. Many see this as a major stride forward, as more plus-sized women are being shown on runways, but not men. Most of men’s representation were six foot models with six packs, until Cody Jacobs.*
“Initially, I thought how incredible it was to see not only a big dude but a black big dude being represented that way,” said Cody Jacobs.
Young guys finally saw someone who looked like them! And naturally, since guys cry too, they started getting emotional. Through Twitter of course.
Rihanna Down
For a show with so much inclusivity, it may be difficult to see where controversy arose. However, many found the specific music choice, “Doom” by Coucou Chloe, to be tonedeaf and offensive.
“‘Doom’ by Coucou Chloe had an Islamic Hadith of the Prophet Muhammed explaining the signs of judgment day and the end of times,” said Highsnobriety.
Many Muslim people saw this as thoroughly disrespectful.
“In Islam, the Hadith is a pivotal source of religious law and moral guidance. It records traditions and sacred sayings, and incorporating these into beats is deemed deeply disrespectful,” said Highsnobriety.
For many people, the concept of an underwear and lingerie brand having a runway show to a song using religious text was deeply hurtful and raised controversy over the show on social media.
Apology on the brain
Rihanna owned up to her mistake. She posted her apology on her Instagram story and her Twitter. It is as followed,
“I'd like to thank the Muslim Community for pointing out a huge oversight that was unintentionally offensive in our Savage X Fenty show. I would more importantly like to apologize to you for this honest, yet careless mistake we understand that we have hurt many of our Muslim brothers and sisters and I am incredibly disheartened by this! I do not play around with any kind of disrespect towards God or any religion in there for the use of the song and our project was completely irresponsible! Moving forward will make sure nothing like this ever happens again thank you for your forgiveness and understanding, Rih.”
Rihanna also sent out direct messages to people apologizing. The writer of the song also came out and apologized as well in a tweet.
“I want to deeply apologize for the offense caused by the vocal samples using my songs do. The song was created using samples from baile Funk tracks I found online. At the time I was not aware that these samples used text from an Islamic Hadith. I take full responsibility for the fact that I did not research these words properly and I want to thank those of you who have taken the time to explain this to me. We have been in the process of having the song urgently removed from all streaming platforms,” Coucou said.
Whether or not internet cancel culture is to truly harm Rihanna’s career is still to be seen, though many on the internet feel it is not the position of non-Muslim people to decide whether or not she is forgiven.