Simon Porte Jacquemus responds to homophobic comments on Instagram, “my bags don’t want you”.

Photo Credit: Instagram

After posting a photo on Instagram with his partner for Valentine’s Day, the Jacquemus founder’s post was met with anti-LGBTQ+ hate comments.

The founder clapped back at the comments in a series of Instagram stories saying that the company has many LGBTQ+ employees and they, “don’t want you as [a] homophobic potential [client]”. He continued, “you don’t deserve our products. Period.”

Photo Credit: Instagram

It might be a clique to post a photo of your date on Valentine’s Day but, for LGBTQ+ people, it is so much bigger than that, simply because representation matters. There is strength in representation, in being able to see yourself in a public figure as successful as Jacquemus.

In another story, Jacquemus expressed how he grew up with a lack of queer representation and subsequently knows how important it is for him to be a source of representation now. The designer wrote, “I will keep posting pictures of love. Always”

In 2017, Michael Morgan, author and former professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst told the Huffington Post, “When you don’t see people like yourself, the message is: You’re invisible. The message is: You don’t count. And the message is: ‘There’s something wrong with me.’ Over and over and over, week after week, month after month, year after year, it sends a very clear message, not only to members of those groups but to members of other groups, as well.”