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As a slew of Hollywood heavyweights denounce Harvey Weinstein in the wake of countless sexual harassment allegations from the past three decades, one woman – fashion designer Donna Karan – has come out in his defence.
Bizarrely, the designer, who has spent her career dressing women for the red carpet, has taken aim at his victims’ style, the Daily Mail reports.
“You look at everything all over the world today and how women are dressing and what they are asking by just presenting themselves the way they do. What are they asking for? Trouble,” Karan said during a red carpet interview at the Ciné Fashion Film Awards this week.
The 69-year-old designer continued, “I think we have to look at ourselves. Obviously, the treatment of women all over the world is something that has always had to be identified. Certainly in the country of Haiti where I work, in Africa, in the developing world, it’s been a hard time for women. To see it here in our own country is very difficult, but I also think how do we display ourselves? How do we present ourselves as women? What are we asking? Are we asking for it by presenting all the sensuality and all the sexuality?”
“And what are we throwing out to our children today about how to dance and how to perform and what to wear? How much should they show?” she added.
Karan goes onto reveal her friendship with Weinstein’s wife. “I know his wife, I think they’re wonderful people, Harvey has done some amazing things. I think we have to look at our world and what we want to say and how we want to say it as well.”
Meanwhile, Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson are among the latest celebrities to speak out against Weinstein’s behaviour. All have worked on Weinstein’s films – Winslet won an Oscar for her role in The Weinstein Company’s The Reader in 2009.
“The fact that these women are starting to speak out about the gross misconduct of one of our most important and well regarded film producers, is incredibly brave and has been deeply shocking to hear,” Winslet said in a statement to Variety.
“His behaviour is without question disgraceful and appalling and very, very wrong. I had hoped that these kind of stories were just made up rumours, maybe we have all been naïve. And it makes me so angry. There must be ‘no tolerance’ of this degrading, vile treatment of women in ANY workplace anywhere in the world,” she added.
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