Victoria’s Secret was under fire this month for one of the lingerie ensembles in their latest “Go East” line called the “Sexy Little Geisha,” which has since removed after bloggers deemed the company “racist.”

The “Sexy Little Geisha” outfit in question featured an ad with South African model Candice Swanepoel in a $98 mesh bodysuit with an Asian-influenced floral pattern and an obi belt with a bow in the back along with a matching Asian-inspired fan and hair chopsticks.

“Your ticket to an exotic adventure: a sexy mesh teddy with flirty cutouts and Eastern-inspired florals. Sexy little fantasies, there’s one for every sexy you,” Victoria’s Secret wrote on the ad, which has since been removed.

The “Sexy Little Geisha” ad was targeted for criticism by bloggers, forcing the Columbus, Ohio-based company to remove the lingerie from its website. But not just the outfit in question but it’s entire “Go East” line of Eastern-influenced lingerie, though many screenshots are still available on the Internet and social media.

The root of the issue many bloggers had was drawn from the misconstrued connotations of the word “geisha” throughout history, who are often misrepresented as prostitutes despite being defined as “a Japanese hostess trained to entertain men with conversation, dance, and song,” according to Google.

The issue was first brought up by Nina Jacinto for Racialicious.com in a blog post, “Victoria’s Secret Does It Again: When Racism Meets Fashion.” Jacinto wrote:

“When someone creates a collection like this, making inauthentic references to ‘Eastern culture’ (whatever that means) with hints of red or a fan accessory or floral designs, it reinforces a narrative that says that all Asian cultures–and their women–are exotic, far away but easy to access. It’s a narrative that says the culture can be completely stripped of its realness in order to fulfill our fantasies of a safe and non-threatening, mysterious East.”

“But when a company takes it one step further by developing a story about how the clothes can offer a sort of escape using explicit sexualized and exploitive language, it takes the whole thing to another level,” she continued. “It’s a troubling attempt to sidestep authentic representation and humanization of a culture and opt instead for racialized fetishizing against Asian women.”

“This isn’t just a pretty Asian-inspired pattern,” Jessica Wakeman of TheFrisky.com wrote. “It’s an entire outfit — a sex costume, really — based on the accoutrements of the Japanese geisha to make your lingerie ‘exotic’ and signify the sexual submission and exploitation of Asian women. (A broad generalization, but you can’t dispute its not there.)”

Victoria’s Secret has not yet made a public statement about the gaffe and it’s not the first time the company was in hot water for one of its products. Back in November, VS made a major error when it printed the fight song of the wrong school on a t-shirt for the VS Pink Collegiate Collection. Instead of using the Michigan State slogan for the shirt, it used the school’s rival, the University of Michigan.

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