Ivanka Trump is shuttering her fashion label for good, and it’s about time

After potential ethics violations, boycotts, and other conflicts of interest — Ivanka Trump is shuttering her eponymous retail brand. When Ivanka joined her father in the White House as a senior advisor, her fashion label became a conflict of interest and an ethical quandary. Some retailers like Nordstrom stopped carrying her line and Ivanka eventually separated herself from the brand last year. But today, July 24th, she announced she’s shutting down the business for good.
“After 17 months in Washington, I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business, but I do know that my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington,” she said in a statement (via The Wall Street Journal). “So making this decision now is the only fair outcome for my team and partners.”
This news was a surprise to her 18 employees as well, who learned they were losing their jobs with the rest of us.
Even though Ivanka put the company into a trust in March 2017 and removed herself from her managerial role, that trust was run by her brother-in-law Josh Kushner (the same Kushner who just announced his engagement to model Karlie Kloss) and sister-in-law Nicole Meyer, and she still received a share of the company’s profits, reportedly earning $5 million from the brand between January 2016 and March 2017. She also continued to wear clothes and accessories from her label in Instagram posts and at White House events which would result in online outlets like The Daily Mail reporting on her style with links to buy the clothes.
“Ivanka Trump is testing the boundaries on federal rules that bar government employees from using their position to promote brands that personally enrich them, Guian McKee, an associate professor in presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center told The Wall Street Journal in December 2017.
In addition to this seemingly corrupt financial situation, The Los Angeles Times reported that her products were made in foreign countries like China and Indonesia despite her supposed push for more jobs in the U.S.
The Ivanka Trump brand can still be found at retailers like Dillard’s, Bloomingdale’s, Zappos, and Amazon until they run out of stock — that is assuming you’d want to buy anything. We won’t.