Celeb Boutique, which lists its address in Buenos Aires, posted a tweet saying “Aurora is trending, clearly about our Kim K inspired Aurora dress,” with a link to its website for a pleated dress.
After numerous angry responses, the company apologized, saying it had made an honest mistake and was not intentionally trying to cash in on the tragedy.
But for several hours, the tweet prompted a firestorm from users outraged about the link to the deadly shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 people were killed on opening night of the new Batman film.
“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS?” asked Wesley Case.
“Twitter is so discouraging today. Idiots,” said a tweet from Steve Farnham.
Zak Bagans tweeted: “You are disgusting.”
Another user, Emily Donahue, said in her Twitter message: “Donate the money you make off the dress to the victims.”
Later in the day, the company apologized and said it was not aware of the reason why the term Aurora was “trending” on Twitter.
“We are incredibly sorry for our tweet about Aurora – Our PR is NOT US based and had not checked the reason for the trend, at that time,” the later message said.
“Again we do apologize for any offense caused.”
The message evoked a similar controversy last year when designer Kenneth Cole posted a Twitter message that played on the turmoil in Egypt to promote his latest fashion line.
Cole ended up removing the comment, which bore a “#Cairo” hashtag used to mark messages related to protests in the Egyptian capital.
“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo,” Cole’s Twitter message read. “Rumor is they heard that our new spring collection is now available online.”