Life

Ivanka’s Brand Doing Great, Thanks For Asking

Ivanka Trump, with husband Jared Kushner. Image by Getty Images

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy April 12, 2017

Remember how, back in February, it seemed as if Ivanka Trump, the brand, was failing? Seems as if it’s doing rather well. On Refinery29, Yael Kohen reports that parent company G-III Apparel Group “cited the Ivanka Trump brand as one of a number of brands that saw ‘an increase in gross profit’ last year.” Ah, but that was 2016. Surely things have changed since the election? Not so! Kohen writes that “independent e-commerce aggregator Lyst […] found that from January to February this year [2017] — around the period that Nordstrom dropped Ivanka Trump goods, and Kellyanne Conway came under fire for promoting them — sales had surged 346%.”

After all that! One wonders (OK, I wonder) whether this is about President Trump’s (many, let us not forget) female fans voting with their wallets, or about Trump supporters and opponents alike needing clothes and, at the end of the day, buying whatever’s at the store and meets whichever budget and style requirements.

The reasons for the brand’s apparent robustness matter less than the implications. As Kohen explains, the concern here is a possible conflict of interest:

Although Ivanka Trump has rolled the fashion company into a trust, she will continue to receive payments from it. It was also reported last week that she will continue to benefit financially from her other family businesses, as well. This despite the fact that she is now an unpaid employee of the federal government.

Over at the Cut, Claire Landsbaum sums this up: “W.”

That seems right.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at [email protected]. She is the author of “The Perils Of ‘Privilege’”, from St. Martin’s Press. Follow her on Twitter, @tweetertation

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.

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