Furniture and home decor retail chain Pottery Barn took the Halloween spirit a little too far this year. The LA Times reports that Pottery Barn has issued an apology statement and pulled two Halloween costumes for grown adults from its Pottery Barn Kids offerings: a "Sushi Chef" costume, and a kimono costume with descriptions like: "Kids shouldn't have all the fun, so we've created this sushi chef design to coordinate with our sushi-themed children's costumes." The kimono costume initially retailed for $59 and was marked down to $34.99, while the sushi chef costume was $39 and then marked down to $9.99. The baby sushi costume is no longer available, but still live on the Pottery Barn Kids website (see Google caches of the sushi chef and the kimono).
The Asian American advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice called the issue to Pottery Barn's attention in a letter on Friday. A spokesperson wrote: "Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are real people who cannot and should not be commodified as costumes." A vp of public relations and marketing for Williams-Sonoma (Pottery Barn's parent company) said: "We did not intend to offend anyone with our Halloween costumes and we apologize." As of Monday morning the links to the costumes are no longer live on the Pottery Barn Kids site, so do check out the costume photos below:
· Pottery Barn apologizes, withdraws Asian Halloween costumes [LAT]
· All Halloween Coverage on Eater [-E-]