What does Sara have to do with it?

She was known by the name of Sara. She had lost her parents growing up: her mom died when she was two and her father passed away when she was a teenager. Later, her baby died and her partner was murdered. She never learned how to read yet she ended up signing a contract as a young adult: she would become a show girl in England.

Sara’s real name was Sarah Baartman. She was born in South Africa’s Eastern Cape in 1789. That was centuries ago, but she only received a proper burial 187 years after her death.

Sarah Baartman was also called the “Hottentot Venus”. Those shows she signed up to do were merely freak shows in London and Paris. People came to see her large buttocks, which were large due to something called "steatopygia”. Putting her medical history aside, today Sarah Baartman is seen as the epitome of colonial exploitation and racism; she is a piece of history showing how easy it is to commodify a person due to their looks.

Sara died at the age of 26. Her genitals were placed in jars displayed publicly at Paris's Museum of Man until 1974. She still affects us today.

History repeating itself

Two years after Sarah’s remains were taken down from the museum a man called Jean-Paul Goude took a photograph of a black model Carolina Beaumont. This photo was published in a book called Jungle Fewer – yes, it had everything to do with Goude’s troublesome obsession over black women.

Most likely this photo isn’t as familiar to you as the more recent copy of it. Taken by the same photographer, this time it was Kim Kardashian balancing a champagne glass on her bottom. Remember the photo that broke the internet?

And now, the same pose, different photographer and totally different type of model is posing yet in the same position, balancing a glass full of sparkling on their bottom.

We are of course talking about an image we are using in our marketing – an image we had no idea had such an unfortunate history.

History can't be canceled, but we can learn from it

A year ago when we launched our sparkling Kyr? Apple, we were excited about this photo. What a great posture! We all had seen Kim’s version but agreed this had something special about it. To us it seemed like the perfect way of saying be who you want to be and cheers to that.

Little did we know about the issues behind the curtain.

We got angry feedback but declined the request to take down the photo. We are publishing it again to market the brand new Kyr? Rhubarb. At this point, you should be asking why.

We said it then and we will say it again: canceling history won’t change anything. Educating ourselves and talking openly about issues around us will make a difference. We must know the past to be able to make the future brighter. We as a brand have the responsibility to use our voice and open these conversations.

Posting this photo gives us a chance to talk about a topic we really don't know too much about. Brave or stupid?

In 2022 we should have learned as much as to respect each other no matter where you come from, who you fall in love with, how you look like. But one only has to open their eyes to understand we are still very far from a perfect world. And that is why we must keep talking.

Sarah Baartman was treated as a circus animal even after she was dead. She deserves better. She deserves us to tell her story so that none of that would happen again.