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Philipp Plein Has Taken to Fat-Shaming Critics

Philipp Plein. Photo: JACKSON LEE /WireImage/Getty Images

Sometimes fashion collections are bad. Designers and editors know this, and yet criticism can be hard to accept. Fashionista contributor Alexandra Mondalek didn’t like Philipp Plein’s latest collection, and wrote for the site that Plein’s brand is a “tacky joke.”

“It’s hard to see how Plein’s vapid, soulless and cheap aesthetic fits at all into where fashion is going,” wrote Mondalek, “let alone how tone deaf his gross displays of personal wealth are in today’s society — so perhaps it’s best we leave it behind altogether.”

Plein, in response, posted photos of Mondalek on Instagram (where he has 1.6 million followers) making disparaging comments about her and her body. On one screenshot of Mondalek’s Twitter, in which she said that she was not seated (as promised) and not fed (as was also promised), he superimposed a photo of Patrick Starr from SpongeBob Squarepants shoveling burgers in his mouth. In another, he wrote over a photo, “next time I make sure that you will get enough food! I promise,” including a GIF of an overweight man. The photos have since been removed.

Mondalek told the Cut that she became aware of the posts on Tuesday evening, due to “plenty of trolls in my DMs.” She says she hasn’t heard from Plein or his brand since.

“It’s one thing to attack someone’s body of work, it’s another thing to attack their body. I was mortified. Who wants their photos mocked by 1.6 million people?” Mondalek said.

If this weren’t already messy enough, let’s not forget that the show Mondalek attended was the subject of a $1 million dollar scam involving Kanye West. “I don’t think it’s a secret to anyone who works in New York fashion that Plein’s shows are routinely chaotic,” Mondalek said. Plein seems to have forgotten that when you invite a writer to a show, they may not like it. And that’s nothing to bully someone over. We’ve reached out to Plein for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

This Designer Has Taken to Fat-Shaming Critics