A lawsuit has been filed against the popular clothing giant, Urban Outfitters, due to selling a t-shirt with a highly inappropriate image of the 16-year-old model Hailey Clauson.
The t-shirt Clauson is suing over portrays and photo of the young model, who happened to be 15-years-old at the time, centered on the front in a provocative manner. According to the lawsuit filed last week: “She is posed in a blatantly salacious manner with her legs spread, without a bra, revealing portions of her breasts. The image of Teen in a spread eagle position making her crotch area the focal point of the image may portray a child in a sexually suggestive manner and may be in violation of one or more federal and/or state laws.” It goes on to mention, “that it also appears to reveal what some observers believe to be pubic hair.”
Jason Lee Parry, the photographer who took the provocative photos, is also named as a defendant. According to Parry, he had authorization to take the photo from Clauson’s parents and distribute the photo. Reports claim that Parry thinks Clauson should thank him, because the t-shirt Urban Outfitters put her photograph on made her famous. Parry also issued a statement that “Unbeknownst to Jason Lee Parry the image in question was selected by the t-shirt brand. He was also unaware of retail distribution of the t-shirt.”
Ben Grossman, communication strategist at Oxford Communication had quite a bit to say about the matter: “I have to say I think the way that this played out is such that it does not smell of a [publicity] stunt,” said Ben Grossman, communication strategist at Oxford Communication. “They have exposed themselves to some major risk and any well-designed [publicity] stunt is not going to risk alienating their customers.”
According to Grossman, this unfortunate situation can be corrected rather easily.
“The most important thing is to be humble in a case where your base is rising up against you,” Grossman told BusinessNewsDaily. “Urban Outfitters’ major mistake is that they haven’t been humble enough to accept that they may have done wrong.”
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