An article about an arms company’s fashion brand angered readers: “Normalize the military industry”

The Business of Fashion (BOF) media published a week ago the thingwhich made waves on social media.

The headline read: “The Unexpected Rise and Uncertain Future of Lockheed Martin Streetwear”. Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest arms manufacturer from the United States.

Muotimedia also picked up the article to their Instagram pages. In the comment field, it faced strong opposition.

“Why are we covering this lol,” one user wrote.

“To me, this looks like casually rebranding guns as part of a lifestyle aesthetic,” said another.

Lockheed Martin Apparel is a branch of the Korean fashion house Doojin Yanghang. The fashion house has bought a license from Lockheed Martin so that it can use the company’s name and logo on its clothes. The first collection of the brand name was released in Seoul in 2023.

Lockheed Martin Apparel focuses on camping and streetwear. The appearance of the clothes is in accordance with current trends. One collection includes a gray t-shirt with a picture of the F-35 fighter. The Israeli army has used the fighter in question in its attacks on Gaza.

The shirt reads: “The F-35 strengthens national security, improves global partnerships and boosts economic growth.”

French fashion influencer Elias Mendini raised his shirt to a stick when taking a stand on the article published by BOF On his Tiktok account.

“When violence becomes a brand, it normalizes the war industry by accepting what it does.”

Fashion designer Miro Hämäläinen tells HS that he understands the anger caused by the Business of Fashion story.

“Se [juttu] seems a bit sensationalist”, Hämäläinen assesses.

According to Hämäläinen, Business of Fashion often does stories about big fashion houses rather uncritically.

“There is a small risk of elevating such a military industry from number one in the media.”

Fashion consumers generally don’t want to think about war when buying clothes, Hämäläinen suspects. That’s why, according to him, big fashion houses rarely take a stand on anything.

“The war is on the wallpaper all the time anyway,” says the fashion designer.

The New York Times wrote in autumn 2023 the thingwhich reported that Lockheed Martin Apparel is part of a Korean phenomenon of buying licenses from well-known brands unrelated to the fashion industry. This has been done for, among others, National Geographic, Nasa and Kodak.

Also in 2023, the brand was criticized. At the same time, it was afloat in its hometown of Seoul.