Zara’s head women’s designer Vanessa Perilman has come under fire for sending highly inflammatory messages to a Palestinian male model on Instagram in 2021.
In light of ZARA’s controversial new campaign, which features images related to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Perilman’s old message to Kahel Harhash has been dug up by netizens calling for a boycott of the brand.
Vanessa Perilman said in a DM to pro-Palestinian advocate Harhash:
“Perhaps if the people were educated they wouldn’t blow up hospitals and schools in the Gaza Strip that Israel helped pay for.”
According to his official LinkedIn profile, Perilman is an industry veteran who has worked for brands like Forever 21 and Calvin Klein. She is currently working at ZARA.
Vanessa Perilman is a veteran fashion designer
According to her official LinkedIn page, Vanessa Ivy Perilman works as “Head Designer of Zara Women’s Collection,” a position she has held for eight years, based in Spain, after taking up the position in 2015.
She develops women’s collections in all areas of design, including designing “limited edition eveningwear collections” for select stores and events around the world.
In addition to collaborating with stylists and photographers on the brand’s Campaign Studio collection, she leads the company’s apparel design direction team and manages a team of six designers. Before founding Zara, she worked as a freelance head designer at Revolve for four months, where she developed “a new women’s wear collection and brand.”
Back in 2014, Vanessa Perilman was a freelance senior designer at Michael Stars in Los Angeles, where she was responsible for the brand’s entire textile category for the Spring/Summer 2015 collection.
Before entering the freelance market, Vanessa was a full-time head designer at Forever 21 for two and a half years from 2011 to 2014.
During her time at Forever 21, she was responsible for creating and designing “all soft fabrics, including dresses and skirts.” She also gained experience communicating with the LA-based brand’s overseeing factories.
Prior to founding Forever 21, she worked as a senior womenswear textile designer at Club Monaco in New York, where she created, designed, and launched beachwear collections.
Prior to joining Monaco, Vanessa held another freelance designer position at the Donna Karan Company (DKNY), working directly with Donna Karan to design the URBAN ZEN line. Before founding DKNY, she was a designer for her Calvin Klein, designing all of their textile categories.
Her first job was as an Associate Designer at LANVIN, where she worked directly as an Associate Designer with Creative Director Alber Elbaz on the “2004/2005 Winter Collection Paris”.
Vanessa Perilman & Zara vs Kahel Harhash & Palestine
Back in June 2021, Vanessa Perilman received a lot of backlash for her actions towards Palestinian model Kahel Harhash. A pro-Palestinian advocate, Harhash always expresses his support for his homeland through his Instagram posts and stories. On June 9, 2021, Perilman responded to one of her own stories with highly inflammatory sentiments.
“Perhaps if the people were better educated they wouldn’t blow up hospitals and schools in Gaza that Israel helped pay for,” she says.
She also claimed:
“I think it’s strange that you’re a model. In fact, it’s against the Islamic faith and if you came out of the closet in a Muslim country, you would be stoned to death.”
Harhash was initially stunned to see such a response from someone so high up at Zara, so he took a screenshot of the text and posted it. Netizens were outraged by Perilman’s comments and called for the designer to be fired and the brand to be boycotted.
Zara’s parent company Inditex issued a statement saying it does not accept any “lack of respect” for any belief, culture, religion, race or country. The company further said in a statement to NBC News:
“ZARA is a diverse company and will never tolerate discrimination of any kind.”
“We condemn these comments, which do not reflect our core values of mutual respect, and regret the offense they have caused,” it added.
Perilman later texted Harhash about her story, telling her it was “weird” for her to post anything about her work. She revealed that she posted the text because a lot of people were “very mean at work” and saying horrible things about Jews, and she was directing them at him. Vanessa said she felt “really bad” for doing so. She revealed:
“Someone wrote me a letter in Arabic saying they would find me and kill my children.”
The model also shared these messages on her Instagram Stories. Newsweek magazine reported that the designer felt sick and repeated the claim, “This is not me,” over and over again. Her last message to the model before deleting all social media was:
“If you want to keep my posts on your story, that’s your right, but just so you know, I’m literally getting death threats about my kids right now.”
Kahel Harhash revealed that Zara asked him to share Vanessa’s apology publicly, but he did not do so. He called on brands to “address Islamophobia” and treat designers the same way they would those fired for “anti-Semitic comments.” he said:
“To me, an apology means fully acknowledging the pain and suffering you caused someone. She wrote hateful comments in my DMs. Why would I accept a half-hearted apology?” Does it have to be?”
Perilman continues to work as the head designer for Zara’s women’s collection.
Zara comes under fire for controversial photoshoot
Vanessa Perilman’s comments from two years ago were dug up by netizens outraged by Zara’s new campaign, “ZARA ATELIER. Collection 04_The Jacket.” The promotional photoshoot for “The Jacket” went viral for all the wrong reasons.
According to netizens, the photo shoot posted on Saturday included some disturbing images set against the backdrop of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Images showed a mannequin that appeared to be a corpse wrapped in a white body bag, which social media users said closely resembled traditional Muslim burial clothes. . Netizens equated it with burial cloths used to bury people who lost their lives in brutal conflicts.
In the shot, American model Kristen McMenamy, wearing The Jacket, can be seen carrying the body.
Netizens claimed that even the cardboard cutouts in the background among the broken rubble closely resembled a map of Palestine. The majority of disgusted netizens called for a boycott of the brand, while a minority defended the artistic integrity of the shoot.
However, Zara intended the post to represent an “intensive design exercise” that showcased the best aspects of the brand’s “creativity and manufacturing capabilities” and “endless possibilities.”