You Can Buy This Sweater. Unless You’re a ‘Proud Zionist.’ Lingua Franca built a brand selling luxury ‘resistance.’ But when a customer ordered a cashmere pro-Israel sweater, the company decided that some causes aren’t worth celebrating.
“Somewhere in the gap between principle and profit-making, Lingua Franca has found a niche in cashmere activism,” writes Maya Sulkin. (Image via Instagram @linguafrancanyc)
“I didn’t vote for him” “Healthcare > billionaires” “Tits up” “I am an immigrant” “Love Trumps hate” “Abortion is healthcare”
These are the kinds of messages that luxury sweater brand Lingua Franca sells to a certain upper-class, mostly female, millennial demographic, for north of a few hundred dollars, plus shipping and handling. The cashmere sweaters are especially popular among a certain type of Manhattanite or Angeleno. Oprah Winfrey has worn one. So has Tom Hanks, Tina Fey, Meryl Streep, and Martha Stewart. This article is featured in Israel and Antisemitism. Sign up here to get an update every time a new piece is published. If these taglines don’t work for you, Lingua Franca, based in New York and with stores in the West Village, Montauk, and Northern California, will let you customize your sweater to say whatever you would like. “The options are limitless,” the company writes on its website. That is exactly what Alison Himel, 60, who lives in Toronto, tried to do a few months ago. She placed a $446.27 order for a navy crewneck sweater with the words “Proud Zionist” embroidered on the front in hand-stitched, light blue letters. But she never received her order. When she asked about it, the customer service team at Lingua Franca first told her the color she ordered was out of stock, and then blamed the mishap on technical issues...
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