Comment of the Day: “Disney Can Do Better”

Some of the commenters in the post about Disney’s disastrous foray into “urban” fashion failed to grasp how embarrassing it is for a company with Disney’s legacy and reputation to release products as ill-conceived as the ones in its Graphic Edge line. Historian Jeff Kurtti saw the bigger picture and eloquently summed up everything that is wrong with the Disney Company’s approach to contemporary fashion:

What’s unfortunate is manifold:

1) Plain poor design. Not just ugly, but uninformed; putting characters in situations that have nothing to do with their long-standing and strong identities, or that belittle their history,

2) That an organization that continues to base so much of its business on the strength of its culture can prostitute their core characters in such a blatant way, and that does nothing to build on those characters, or have any cultural value beyond desire for profit,

3) That “relevance” is seen not in playing up the characters’ strengths and long-standing identities in a new and unique fashion, but rather in dressing them up in “whatever the kids are into.”

4) That, rather than using those built-in strengths to lead a design trend in pop fashion, they choose to ape an already-tired “Urban Fashion.”

It’s “Disco Mickey Mouse,” writ large and without tongue in cheek.