H&M's 'coolest monkey in the jungle' hoodie sparked a global racism row

In January 2018, H&M's United Kingdom website listed a green children's hoodie printed with the slogan 'coolest monkey in the jungle', modelled by a Black child. The image was quickly shared on social media, where it was condemned as racist, given the long history of Black people being compared to monkeys. Within days it had become a global controversy for the Swedish fast-fashion giant.

H&M removed the image and apologised, saying it 'has now been removed from all H&M channels and we apologise to anyone this may have offended.' The backlash did not stop there. The singer The Weeknd and the rapper G-Eazy both ended their collaborations with the brand. In South Africa, H&M stores were vandalised and looted, and the chain temporarily closed them.

The case was less about the hoodie itself than about the approval process behind it: online, the dominant question was how an image with such an obvious racial connotation had been photographed, uploaded and published by a global retailer without anyone intervening. It became a textbook example of how a single marketing asset, approved without a second pair of eyes, can inflict worldwide damage on a brand in hours.