The image was posted on American Apparel’s Tumblr account. It has since been deleted, but can still be seen via screenshots from Tumblr users. The post used the tags #smoke and #clouds.
The photo, which the American Apparel employee thought was of fireworks, was actually of the horrific Challenger disaster, which occurred on Jan. 28, 1986. The shuttle exploded only 73 seconds after liftoff and killed all seven crew members.
Mashable says that, unsurprisingly, the post received a lot of backlash online.
Thursday night, American Apparel tweeted an apology, which said that an employee who was born after the explosion and was thus unaware of the disaster. They added: “We sincerely regret the insensitivity of that selection and the post has been deleted.”
This is the latest unsavory attention the clothing company has gotten recently. American Apparel made headlines a few weeks ago when it chose to fire founder Dov Charney, who has been hit with multiple lawsuits over alleged sexual assault.
