Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Pink Hitler Posters Cause Outrage

I have long thought that Hitler could have used a makeover. Maybe I just prefer my historical dictators to be cleanly shaven. However, jeans company New Form’s new ad campaign, which portrays the Nazi leader in Barbie-pink military garb and an armband with a red heart in place of a swastika, somehow doesn’t quite inspire me to hit the mall.

Projected on 18ft posters, according to the Telegraph, throughout the city of Palermo, Sicily, the posters read “Change Style — Don’t Follow Your Leader” and reeks of a desperate attempt to draw publicity no matter how negatively charged it may be.

Residents of Palermo, a city almost entirely devoid of Jews, have called for the posters’ removal. But a spokesperson for the agency that devised the ad, Daniele Manno, says “We have ridiculed Hitler in a way that invites young people to create their own style and not to be influenced by their peers.”

I usually admire a man who is confident enough to wear the color pink, and though I’m certainly no fashion expert, in this case I don’t think Hitler quite pulled it off.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.