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The Ivanka Trump-Nordstrom Controversy, Explained

Why stores like Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus have backed away from Ivanka Trump’s fashion line.

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The name Ivanka Trump stands for a specific, accessible kind of glamour. But the name is also inextricably linked to her father, the Trump family patriarch — which is why it was hard to not draw a line from one to the other when Nordstrom confirmed in February 2017 that it was dropping the Ivanka Trump fashion line.

The move came after months of pressure on Ivanka and her brand, stemming from Donald Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape. Women responded to the then-candidate’s vulgar comments — and his daughter’s weak response — by protesting the Ivanka Trump brand. Two women went a step further and created an official boycott of Ivanka Trump and the retailers that carried it, calling it the #GrabYourWallet campaign. The most buzzed-about retailer on the boycott list? Nordstrom.

Several months (and one historic stunner of a presidential election) later, Nordstrom had quietly removed Ivanka Trump items from its website, as well as its master list of designers, and confirmed to Racked that it was dropping Ivanka.

“This was a decision made entirely based on brand performance,” not politics, a Nordstrom spokeswoman said in a statement. But was it really?

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