Beyonce Drops Topshop Owner Amidst Allegations
How do you show “the man,” who really runs the world? Girl, buy out his shares. Beyonce did exactly that to end her joint partnership with Topshop owner, Sir Philip Green. In 2016, they had joined forces to create Ivy Park, a brand dedicated to athleisure to empower the modern woman. Green’s parent company, Arcadia Group had a fifty-fifty partnership with Beyonce’s Parkwood company—but times are changing.
Back in October, allegations of racism and sexual harassment arose about Green. The Topshop owner has been accused of bullying his employees, belittling women, and making derogatory comments about minorities. Speculation shrouded Green’s involvement with Beyonce’s Ivy Park line. But Beyonce isn’t Queen B for nothing—the singer doesn’t just publicly support equality between the sexes without also taking action against working with people whose values don’t align with hers.
A statement released to the Financial Times this past Friday, made clear that Ivy Park brand had been fully acquired by Parkwood.
Ivy Park’s brand identity at the core is to empower women and women of color by choosing activist spokespeople such as Laverne Cox and Yara Shahidi. Ivy Park supports community outreach projects and donates gear to the nonprofit Figure Skating in Harlem. Green and his hate-fueled rhetoric have no place in the socially conscious values of the Ivy Park brand.
Who Runs the World? Beyonce.