Zina Eva Bags: When Public Relations Goes Wrong
Manolo says, the Manolo’s dear internet friends at the Bag Snob have reported the case of the public relations person who became abusive when the blogger did not do what was desired.
We weren’t going to do an editorial on this bag line but have received over a dozen crazy harassment emails from the PR girl representing them so we decided to put it out there so you can stay clear of this line of horribly made and very cheap bags. Kelly first received an email two months ago from Zina Eva’s rep asking to participate in our monthly bag giveaway but after receiving the samples this weekend we decided the bags were not up to Bag Snob par and we couldn’t possibly endorse it let alone give it to our readers. […]
We promptly contacted them and told them we’d return the bags and will not be able to include them in our monthly giveaway but the PR girl turned nasty and started sending us harassment emails with racist overtones. Let’s see, she accused us of using fake last names because our names are English/European yet we don’t look European (Basically non-white people are not allowed to have European surnames according to this genius PR girl) and then she accused us of trying to scam them of $150 (wholesale price) bags?!?!??! How is it a scam if we didn’t want to keep the hideous bags for our giveaway?
This is outrageous behavior, and as counter-productive as anything the Manolo has ever heard of. The P.R. person who sent these emails and her firm should be named and denounced publicly.
No blogger, no person, should ever have to tolerate this sort of abuse for giving his or her honest opinion about the shoddy product.
In fact, once this person and her firm are named, you may be certain that the Manolo will never, ever respond to any press release or email from this firm, and he would suggest that other fashion bloggers likewise boycott them, at least until the most public and groveling sort of apology is issued.
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Comments
Bridey 16 years ago
Wow. Working as I do on the extreme outer fringes of the entertainment industry, I deal with PR folks pretty often, and I’ve generally found them to be gracious, cheerful, and professional. Indeed, given that people in my profession often (and inexcusably) treat them dismissively or with rudeness, I’ve known PR people to be touchingly grateful just to be civilly treated.
I’ve never heard of a PR person going off the deep end like that — and I bet the BagSnob ladies are not the only people she’s abused. An e-mail to the client, with copies of the e-mails from the PR person and a link to the blog post, would be doing the client a great favor.
moxie the maven 16 years ago
Oh no she didn’t! That is just terrible, and Bridey says, atypical of most PR people. I wonder if the company thought “let’s get on this blogging thing” and assigned an intern to get in touch with bloggers.
PR Person 16 years ago
I did a little bit of searching, and Round-About Public Relations put out a press release for Zina Eva in September. So unless they’ve changed firms since then, the culprit comes from Round-About. As someone in the PR industry, I hate when inconsiderate people like this give us a bad name. And unfortunately this didn’t shock me as much as you might think.
Bag Snob Tina 16 years ago
Thank you Dear Manolo, your words mean a great deal to us. We will be posting the harassment emails soon. Trying to get it all together, there have been so many!
roz 16 years ago
Unbelievable.
Plus, the Roz would like to thank the Manolo for directing her to such an awesome blog!
Melissa 16 years ago
A quick glance at the Bag Snob website should have told the PR girl that the Bag Snob is … not exactly the place to market your $150 fake-leather purse. The stuff the Snobs recommend is gorgeous but also extremely expensive — way more high-end than the stuff Zina Eva designs. Women who buy Birkin bags aren’t going to be impressed by fake neon-pink snakeskin. The PR girl should have counted herself lucky that the Bag Snobs were just returning the bags without mentioning the line on the site. Zina Eva has since fired the firm, and I hope the firm fires this woman in turn.
janice 16 years ago
you know it was very wrong of this pr firm to handle themselves in this fashion and im glad that zina eva fired them but on the flip side i have seen there line and its not crap its a very nice line of handbags so why wasnt this handled privately ???
its also not a nice thing to do to try and destroy a company the way the blogs have done since its all over the web to compare these bags to target 35.00 bags is not true are these bags jimmy choos or manolos cavallis no but they certainly are beautiful handbags and i hope this bullying stops as there are consumers out there that will boycott this line and for what ?? bad PR
whomever this women in the pr department was she should not work in this industry had she done her homework she would have realized that bag snobs would not consider her line on the scale of what they report on but again
i dont agree with the blasting of the feed to be all over the web
so its a bad situation that i hope in time will be forgotten as i feel bad for this designer
cathy 16 years ago
Janice, punctuation. Punctuation, Janice.
Patricia 16 years ago
I dont agree with the racist comment but i do agree with the soccer mom comments. LMAO . These women think they are hot yet they cant afford the absolute best! and Hermes is not the best. Critiques who dont live the lifestyle they critque are so 1992.
And Kristopher no one hates you or your blog. You are just well annoying and attention seeking thats all . border line boring .
janice 16 years ago
Cathy when i write i just state my opinion i really cant stand when people comment like you did you got my point !
i do not agree with what this PR firm did i think they were plain and simple! but i dont agree with the fact that people are able to blast this all over the web and put this designer potentially out of business or atleast try too. Zina Eva has a beautiful line of handbags and to say they are plastic and not up to par is not nice and not true..thats my point i don’t think its right when you have a forum like some of these blogs to become or think you can be that powerful to ruin someones business, not every reader is going to take up the cause , as there will be people like me who don’t think 2 wrongs make a right
over some stupid pr persons big mistake!! I love reading these Blogs and there opinions but when it goes to far it becomes a turn off …i felt very sorry for this company especially that they apparently had no idea what was going on
and winded up having such terrible press all over the web
so thats my point, i do not think bag snobs should have to put up with any crap from any pr firm but i also think that together with the other blogs they bullied zina eva and thats wrong, what they should have done was contacted zina eva and said hey if this continues with this PR firm we will post on our blog what is going on
and gave this company the opportunity too take care of the situtaion but they didnt and thats wrong
just an opinion!
Patricia 16 years ago
I totally agree . janice. they should be ashamed of them selves for blasting her brand like that. Calling it plastic and all that. They are wannabees anyway. They think Vogue is high class. F*cking upper Middle class losers. They wish they where apart of the real elite. instead of this celebrity elite nonsense.
Manolo the Shoeblogger 16 years ago
Ayyyy!
Please, the Manolo has always encouraged the politeness at his blog, and these needlessly abusive comments are crossing the line.
Let us restrain ourselves.
Heidi 16 years ago
Patricia
It sounds like you are working for the PR firm- or Zina Eva. “They wish they where apart of the real elite.” Where apart? Learn proper English first before blasting people.
You claim to be a part of the “real elite”, yet you spend your time obsessed over a handbag blog. Plus your use of language clearly shows you are mere trailer trash. It seems you are the jealous loser here.
Furthermore, the Bag Snobs were very courteous to Zina Eva in their updated post. Meanwhile, Zina Eva is still employing that PR firm. They are actively pitching to fashion blogs (including mine) as I write this! So basically Zina Eva is lying too! The Bag Snobs should call her out on it but they have too much class to do so. They have not mentioned it since her supposed apology. They are beyond it now and off to bigger and better things.
Anne 16 years ago
I agree with Heidi. Anyone who claims they are the “real” elite are usually furthest from that.
As for your soccer mom comment, you obviously have never seen the Bag Snobs on tv. Specifically, MTV- Tina was a MTV VJ and successful jewelry designer prior to starting Bag Snob, far from a wannabe. Which you seem to be.
hilarious 16 years ago
I know the person who probably did this and I got to say, it’s got nothing to do with anyone – she’s just plain nuts.
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