Fashion Company Apologises For Using Famous Image Of Imprisoned Indigenous Teen On T-Shirt
Las Vegas-based fashion company KNYEW has apologised to Dylan Voller and his family for using an infamous image from the abused teen’s time at Don Dale youth detention centre.
The image shows Voller tied to a chair with his head covered by a hood.
In a statement published on Facebook and Instagram today, the company apologised for creating the tee.
“It has come to our attention that our ‘Detention Tee’ incorporated inappropriate imagery from a juvenile detention in Australia and we would like to apologise especially to the victim Dylan Voller and his family,” the statement read. “The tee was intended to be an indictment of systematic oppression experienced by young people but we failed to get that message across.”
Here’s the full statement:
Posted by KNYEW on Saturday, 7 July 2018
Earlier, the company published a statement saying that they had fired the t-shirt’s designer. According to KNYEW, around 50 copies of the t-shirt had been made.
The image of Voller was one of the emotional scenes that inspired a Royal Commission into abuse in Northern Territory detention centres. The incarceration of Indigenous Australian youth continues to be a pressing issue in Northern Territory: last month, it was revealed that 100 percent of all incarcerated youth in the territory were Indigenous Australian.
In the day since news of KNYEW’s use of the image broke, their Facebook page has been flooded with one star reviews.
“I want to know what changes this massive clusterf… has brought about in your approvals process,” Sharni Bartlett wrote in a one-star review on KNYEW’s Facebook page. “Show us that changes have really taken place and you’re committed to never making the same mistake again.”
“Torture fashion – despicable,” wrote another reviewer, Stella Topaz. “Your t-shirt with a photo of a young person being in restraints and hood in prison. With no permission from him and no care of the horror he endured.”
As of Sunday, the fashion outlet’s Facebook page has 196 one-star reviews, compared to 48 four- or five-star reviews.