Nike Forced To Pull Pants For Being 'Culturally Insensitive'

Yahoo: Nike halted production on a line of sportswear on Wednesday after an outcry that the designs were culturally insensitive. The women’s running tights, bodysuit, and sports bra in the Nike Pro Tattoo Tech line were decorated with a pattern based on Samoan tattoos called pe’a, which are traditionally reserved for men.Related: The Top Most Controversial T-Shirts of 2013More on Yahoo!: Benetton’s Controversial AdsThe Polynesian tradition of applying tattoos is thought to go back at least 2,000 years. The craft is passed from father to son, and artists still use sharpened boar’s teeth and pieces of turtle shell fastened to a wooden handle to prick the design into the skin. Pe’a cover the body from the waist down to the knees. The process is extremely painful and can take days — even months — to complete. It’s a rite of passage that symbolizes courage and a commitment to traditional ways. The word tattoo is believed to be derived from the Samoan “tatau.”

Nike previewed the limited-edition items on Twitter on July 29. Two days later, the sporting goods giant wrote on the Nike blog, “The NTM (Nike Tight of the Moment) gets all fancy pants again, this time looking to the tattoos of Fiji, Samoa and New Zealand for the latest head-turning design, the Nike Pro Tattoo Tech tights (and sports bra and bodysuit).”