Note: An earlier version of this story didn't include our own coverage on this topic—we have edited the piece to give that context.
By now you've probably read about Blake Lively's ill-advised ode to antebellum fashion. We too, were taken aback by her choice to celebrate the pre-Civil War era sartorially, without noting that the nice lifestyle enjoyed by some came at great human cost. Great, ugly, human cost. (Plenty of you disagreed with our take. Read the comments!)
For their story, Gawker went a bit further and ran with this headline: "Blake Lively's Fall Fashion Inspiration Is Slaveowners."Unsurprisingly, they soon received a cease-and-desist letter from Lively's lawyer, Philip Korologos. The attorney states Gawker's coverage is a "deliberate, unprotected, and actionably false attack on Ms. Lively's character and on the business of Preserve." He also put words like "article" and "reporting" in quotes, which may have been an attempt at a sick burn, but in reality we all know Gawker's hung this letter on the company's fridge.
Max Read, Gawker's editor-in-chief, is standing by the site's take on Lively's collection. He wrote, "Given that the 'The Allure of Antebellum' referred to in the Preserve article is apparently the cute clothes worn by the archetypal slave-owning class during the horrifying epoch in which an unimaginably violent white supremacist state reached its apex, we won't be removing the post."
It remains to be seen what, if any, legal repercussions Gawker will face for its article. Or if Ms. Lively will rethink her fashion inspiration. (Although, considering she got married at a plantation, maybe not.) We're just really still into the 90s, to be honest.
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